Sandisk stock’s 1000% rally turbocharged by Nvidia CEO’s remarks
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Sandisk shares jumped after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang highlighted the need for memory and storage in comments at tech conference CES 2026.
PHOTO: SANDISK
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NEW YORK - Sandisk shares jumped as much as 25 per cent on Jan 6, hitting a record in their best intraday performance since February, after Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang highlighted the need for memory and storage in comments at tech conference CES 2026.
The stock is on a tear, leaping more than 40 per cent in the first three trading sessions of 2026 and soaring roughly 1,050 per cent since hitting a low on April 22, 2025. It was the best performer in the S&P 500 Index on Jan 6, followed by memory and storage companies Western Digital and Seagate Technology Holdings, both of which are posting double-digit percentage gains.
“For storage, that is a completely unserved market today,” Mr Huang said at CES on Jan 5. “This is a market that never existed, and this market will likely be the largest storage market in the world, basically holding the working memory of the world’s AIs.”
Tight supply and a surge in memory pricing amid a growing need for artificial intelligence (AI) training and inferencing are helping to boost digital storage stocks, according to Bloomberg Intelligence’s Jake Silverman. Mr Huang’s comments at CES “suggest that demand for NAND storage will remain robust across Nvidia systems”, he said.
Memory prices have been steadily climbing. Earlier this week, Korea Economic Daily reported that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix were seeking to raise server DRAM prices by 60 per cent to 70 per cent in the first quarter from the fourth quarter of 2025.
Sandisk and other memory and storage companies are seen as “key beneficiaries” of the push for “AI inferencing and AI at the edge” in 2026, Bank of America analysts led by Mr Wamsi Mohan wrote in a note to clients on Jan 4. Mr Mohan expects organisations to retain increasing amounts of data for training, analytics and compliance purposes, with demand for storage “skyrocketing in tandem”. In particular, he cited growing use in drones, surveillance, vehicles and sports technology.
“The focus of the AI investment theme has been levered so far to capex spending and a push for training AI models, that has created the next wave in hardware spending,” Mr Mohan wrote. “As we look at 2026 and beyond, we expect AI Inference to dominate.” BLOOMBERG
