Sandisk Soars on AI Infrastructure Boom
Sandisk's shares have skyrocketed by a jaw-dropping 4,300% over the last 18 months and an astonishing 568% in 2026 alone, making it the top-performing stock in the Nasdaq-100. The company was spun off from Western Digital in February 2025 and began trading on the Nasdaq at around $35.
The rapid ascent of Sandisk's stock has left some investors wondering whether the opportunity to invest has already passed by. However, a closer look at the dynamics of the artificial intelligence (AI) memory market reveals that there are several factors driving Sandisk's climb and positioning it for continued growth.
At the core of Sandisk's success is a supply-demand imbalance amplified by AI infrastructure build-outs. Hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Oracle have collectively earmarked more than $700 billion in capital expenditures (capex) for 2026 alone, with 30% of this budget allocated to memory solutions.
Sandisk is strategically placed in the NAND flash section of this AI spending, with its enterprise solid-state drives (SSDs) optimized for inference workloads and data lakes. This has fueled accelerated growth in Sandisk's data center segment, where trailing sales rose 437% over the last year to $5.2 billion.
The company has locked in long-term 'New Business Model' supply agreements with eight data center and edge customers, guaranteeing a minimum of $93.9 billion in contracted revenue at floor pricing. This covers half of the company's fiscal 2027 bit supply and two-thirds of fiscal 2028.
Sandisk also has a joint venture with Japanese memory specialist Kioxia, which helps keep its capex at a minimal percentage of sales, allowing it to allocate more resources toward improving existing chip architectures.