Two of the biggest names in computer memory, SK Hynix and Sandisk, are teaming up to create a new industry standard for a technology they believe will be essential for the future of artificial intelligence. The companies announced a new partnership to standardize “high-bandwidth flash” (HBF), a next-generation memory architecture designed specifically for AI.
SK Hynix hosted the official kick-off event for the new consortium at Sandisk’s headquarters in California this week. The two companies plan to work together under the umbrella of the Open Compute Project, a major industry organization, to create a set of open standards that everyone can use.
So, what exactly is HBF? It’s a new type of flash memory that is designed to be a bridge between the two main types of memory used in computers today: super-fast but expensive HBM, and slower but much larger SSDs. HBF aims to offer the best of both worlds, providing both high speed and large capacity at an efficient price point.
This is becoming increasingly important as the world of AI shifts from “training” massive models to “inference,” which is the process of actually using those models to get real-time results. Inference requires fast and frequent access to huge amounts of stored data, and that’s where HBF comes in.
Industry experts expect HBF to hit the market in late 2027 or early 2028, with demand really taking off around 2030. By working together to create a single, open standard, SK Hynix and Sandisk are hoping to speed up the adoption of this new technology and build a solid foundation for the entire AI ecosystem to grow.
