Nvidia's new CMX storage system could create fresh NAND demand the size of adding another Apple, according to the analysis. Jukan zeroes in on a single, staggering number. Citing an industry write-up, he notes that Nvidia's Rubin-generation CMX storage system packs 576 SSDs for a total of 9,600 terabytes, and that the NAND flash demand tied to CMX alone could jump from about 35 million terabytes this year to more than 100 million next year. As he puts it, CMX will 'soak up NAND supply' in large volumes. To make 100 million terabytes tangible, he says it is roughly like bolting a second, Apple-sized customer onto the NAND market overnight. Why it matters: NAND has long been the cheaper, lower-margin cousin of DRAM, a commodity that swung through brutal gluts. But if AI systems need vast, fast storage tiers to park context and model data, that commodity becomes a scarce input, and the memory makers, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, get a fresh demand engine on top of the HBM (high-bandwidth memory) boom. Jukan pairs this with news that Samsung is ramping tenth-generation V-NAND shipments to Nvidia, the supply side lining up to meet exactly this demand. The through-line: the AI buildout is quietly turning storage memory into a growth story, not just a leftover.
Why it matters · If one Nvidia storage box can double NAND demand, the memory market's cheapest tier turns into a scarce AI input, handing Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron a second growth engine beside HBM.
Worth asking · Nvidia's CMX as a NAND super-cycle in the making, a durable new demand engine, or an aggressive estimate that a notoriously cyclical memory market will overshoot and glut again?