Event Report: FMS 2026 - KIOXIA Showcases Game Changing Flash Storage Innovations for the AI Era

October 27, 2026

The Future of Memory and Storage (FMS) 2026 event, the world's largest event on flash memory and storage held in Santa Clara, USA, brought together the world’s innovators shaping the future of memory and storage. The Future of Memory and Storage over-arching mission is to help accelerate the move towards a world where advanced memory and storage technologies enable AI systems, data centers, hyperscalers and enterprises to operate at unprecedented scale, speed and efficiency. As an Executive Premier Sponsor, KIOXIA was right in the middle of the action throughout the event. Through the keynote presentation, executive panel discussions, technical sessions, and technology demonstrations, KIOXIA showcased the innovations driving the performance, scalability, and efficiency required for next-generation AI infrastructure. This focus on AI came through in everything the company highlighted including enabling the next generation of AI with flash memory and storage technologies that deliver the performance, density, and efficiency organizations need. From the data center to the edge, KIOXIA’s innovations are a game changer, helping power the AI applications transforming how businesses operate and compete.

KIOXIA - Game changing flash storage solutions for the age of AI | FMS 2026 Highlights (Video, 2:20)

KIOXIA Keynote

Katsuki Matsudera, General Manager of the memory technical marketing managing department for Kioxia Corporation, and Neville Ichhaporia, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the SSD business unit for KIOXIA America, Inc. kicked off the event with the first industry keynote session. Matsudera explained the new role of flash memory, and Neville explained the cutting edge of SSDs supporting AI Evolution.

How Can Flash Memory Contribute to Memory Expansion?

Flash memory can be used as a memory expansion since most applications access only a small portion of their data frequently - roughly 80% of all accesses go to just 20% of the data and the rest is accessed only occasionally. Our approach is to place infrequently accessed data in flash memory that supports the same memory access semantics as DRAM. This offers much larger memory capacity and lower TCO.

Key Directions for SSD Evolution

KIOXIA has been monitoring the impact of generative AI on Data Storage. What we found is that SSD storage appears to be evolving in 4 directions along 2 familiar vectors – Capacity and Performance. Each of these directions are driving novel approaches to SSD design, including innovations in flash media and SSD architecture. These 4 directions are leading to different classes of SSDs, each servicing a distinct set of Generative AI workloads.

Roadmap for Latest KIOXIA GP Series

As impressive as 10 million IOPS (Input Output Per Second) is, KIOXIA continues to work on the path to PCIe^® 7.0 and 100 MIOPS—that we announced last year with the aid of our high-speed emulator. Our XL-FLASH™ technology makes 100 MIOPS possible.

FMS 2026 - KIOXIA Keynote (Video, 32:28)

KIOXIA GP Series Wins Best of Show in the 'Specialized Storage' Category as the Industry's First SSD Optimized for GPU Direct Access

Award Winning KIOXIA SSD and Memory Technology

Press Release: KIOXIA GP Series Super High IOPS PCIe^® SSD Named 'Best of Show' at FMS: the Future of Memory and Storage 2026

KIOXIA GP Series, industry's first* SSD optimized for GPU direct access won "Best of Show"
*As of March 16, 2026, based on Kioxia survey.

New Game Changing Flash Based Storage Solutions for the age of AI

KIOXIA also announced a number of exciting new flash memory and SSD solutions at or leading up to the event including the KIOXIA CM10 Series PCIe^® 6.0 enterprise SSDs and KIOXIA NX1 Series SSDs, both of which support direct liquid cooling. Designed for AI and modern data center (Next-generation systems and facilities compatible with cutting-edge technologies such as AI and the cloud) environments, KIOXIA CM10 Series SSDs are the first enterprise drives built with BiCS FLASH™ generation 10 flash memory, and the KIOXIA NX1 Series represents a new generation of E1.S PCIe^® 5.0 NVMe™ data center SSDs. The company also announced its UFS 5.0 embedded flash memory solutions, designed to deliver the performance, efficiency and capacity required for the next generation of AI-enabled mobile and edge devices.

KIOXIA CM10 Series Enterprise SSDs in 2.5-inch, E1.S, and E3.S form factors, and KIOXIA NX1 Series Data Center SSDs in E1.S form factor.

Press Releases

Kioxia Announces Next-Generation E1.S SSDs for AI and Hyperscale Environments

Kioxia Introduces First PCIe^® 6.0 Enterprise SSDs Utilizing Newest BiCS FLASH™ Generation 10 Flash Memory

Kioxia Announces GP1 Series Super High IOPS SSDs for AI Applications

New UFS 5.0 Embedded Flash Memory Devices from Kioxia Enable On-Device AI

In addition to the new product announcements and keynote, Kioxia experts shared insights throughout the week in various sessions and panels highlighting the technologies shaping the future of AI infrastructure, including flash memory, SSDs, computational storage, CXL™ interface, NVMe™ protocol, and other next-generation storage architectures.

Kioxia also presented or participated in 14 different sessions and panels

KIOXIA Booth and Live Demos

At the Kioxia booth attendees got up close and personal with the latest solutions in a wide range of live product and technology demonstrations including:

Liquid Cooling SSDs for AI — featuring KIOXIA NX1 Series Data Center NVMe™ SSDs
Context Memory Caching for Maximizing AI Inferencing — featuring KIOXIA CM9 Series Enterprise NVMe™ SSDs
PCIe^® 6.0 NVMe™ Enterprise SSDs — featuring KIOXIA CM10 Series Enterprise NVMe™ SSDs
KIOXIA GP1 Series Super High IOPS SSD — 10 million IOPS in 512-byte random read performance for near GPU workloads
AI RAG: Improving Scalability for Vector Databases — featuring KIOXIA AiSAQ™ open source software
High Capacity QLC Storage for Fast Retrieval of Large Datasets — featuring 245.76 TB KIOXIA LC9 Series NVMe™ SSDs
New UFS 5.0: AI Ready, High Performance Memory Solutions
CXL™ Memory Module with KIOXIA XL-FLASH™ — expanding the memory hierarchy with XL-FLASH™
BiCS FLASH™ generation 10 Flash Memory — advanced scaling with CMOS directly Bonded to Array (CBA) technology, featuring 332 layers with enhanced lateral shrink
High Capacity Package/Low Latency QLC Flash Memory — featuring a 32-die stack BGA package for AI applications

Kioxia also collaborated with Hunter Pence, two-time world champion and four-time all-star, who helped showcase the applications of AI, the opportunities they create, and how Kioxia solutions are empowering today’s game changers. Pence was featured not only in the company’s keynote but also on the show floor, where he engaged with attendees at the Kioxia booth, creating a memorable experience for everyone involved.

Kioxia once again had the first keynote at the show and the room was packed.

Kioxia along with others presented and discussed about storage and memory in AI at the AI panel.

Kioxia booth was at the main entry way, attracting many attendees as they came through.

Kioxia "Game Changer" messaging was front and center, capturing attendees' attention.

Kioxia demonstrated its high capacity QLC storage with the KIOXIA LC9 Series SSD to attendees.

Kioxia attracted many attendees with the wafers, microscope layers demo, and the 3D flash memory model.

The quad demo stations enabled eight separate demos right up front to educate attendees in real time.

Attendees were interested in learning about the new KIOXIA CM10 Series Enterprise SSD.

That spirit of collaboration was on full display at FMS 2026. The idea of being a game changer captured the spirit of the event. AI is creating opportunities to change the way businesses operate, compete, and solve problems, and the infrastructure behind those applications has to evolve alongside them. At KIOXIA, we’re proud to be advancing our game-changing flash memory and SSD technologies that can help make those possibilities a reality. A huge thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth, joined one of our sessions, or took the time to share ideas and perspectives with us. The conversations, questions, and connections made this FMS a memorable one and reinforced our excitement for the opportunities ahead.

Definition of capacity: Kioxia Corporation defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes, a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes and a terabyte (TB) as 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. A computer operating system, however, reports storage capacity using powers of 2 for the definition of 1GB = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes and 1TB = 2^40 bytes = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes and therefore shows less storage capacity. Available storage capacity (including examples of various media files) will vary based on file size, formatting, settings, software and operating system, and/or pre-installed software applications, or media content. Actual formatted capacity may vary.
NVMe is a registered or unregistered mark of NVM Express, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
PCIe is a registered trademark of PCI-SIG.
CXL and Compute Express Link are trademarks of the Compute Express Link Consortium, Inc.
Other company names, product names and service names may be trademarks of third-party companies.
Information on this page is current as of the time of the event.