NAND Flash, Once a Heavy Lossmaker, Roars Back as AI Drives Record Exports

NAND flash, once seen as the semiconductor industry's unwanted stepchild after generating losses of several trillion won, has made a dramatic comeback on the artificial intelligence boom. Exploding storage demand from AI data centers has turned NAND, alongside high-bandwidth memory, into what the industry calls AI's second heart.

Data released by the Korea Customs Service on May 5 showed first-quarter flash memory exports from Pyeongtaek and Hwaseong in Gyeonggi Province and Asan in South Chungcheong Province, where Samsung Electronics has chip production bases, reached a record $3.61875 billion.

That was about 4.5 times the $657.05 million recorded a year earlier. NAND exports from Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province, where SK Hynix operates a NAND plant, also nearly quadrupled to $1.30697 billion from $328.9 million over the same period. That contrasts with a year earlier, when inventories were building during the chip downturn.

"After HBM, which processes data quickly, eSSD has now emerged as an essential part of AI infrastructure because it stores vast amounts of data," an industry official said. The official added that recovering demand and a surge in product prices boosted export values by lifting per-unit prices.

Jang Chang-min, Hankyung.com reporter cmjang@hankyung.com