Samsung Starts Mass Production Of Most Powerful SSD For AI PCs

(RTTNews) - Samsung Electronics Co. announced that it has begun mass production of a new solid-state drive or SSD, which stores and transfers data for artificial intelligence personal computers.

The South Korean advanced memory tech major has initiated mass producing PM9E1, a PCle 5.0 SSD with the industry's highest performance and largest capacity. According to the firm, the SSD has significantly improved power efficiency of over 50 percent, which allows for longer battery life which is ideal for on-device AI applications.

Starting with PM9E1, Samsung plans to expand its advanced SSD offerings to global PC makers. The company expects to launch PCIe 5.0-based consumer products in the future to solidify its leadership in the on-device AI market.

The SSD is built on its in-house 5-nanometer -based controller and eighth-generation V-NAND (V8) technology. According to the firm, the PM9E1 will provide powerful performance and enhanced power efficiency, making it an optimal solution for on-device AI PCs.

The company added that there is significant improvement in key attributes in SSDs, including performance, storage capacity, power efficiency and security, compared to its predecessor, PM9A1a.

The new SSD's sequential read and write speeds have more than doubled compared to the previous generation, reaching up to 14.5 gigabytes-per-second or GB/s and 13GB/s, respectively. Samsung noted that this powerful performance enables faster data transfer even with data-intensive AI applications. A 14GB large language model or LLM can now be transferred from the SSD to DRAM in less than a second.

The new PM9E1 offers various storage options, including 512GB, 1 terabyte (TB), 2TB and the industry's largest capacity of 4TB, which is especially an optimum solution for PC users in need of high-capacity storage for large-sized files.

Further, for stronger security measures, Samsung has applied Security Protocol and Data Model or SPDM v1.2 to the PM9E1.

YongCheol Bae, Executive Vice President of Memory Product Planning at Samsung Electronics, said, "Our PM9E1 integrated with a 5nm controller delivers industry-leading power efficiency and utmost performance validated by our key partners. In the rapidly growing on-device AI era, Samsung's PM9E1 will offer a robust foundation for global customers to effectively plan their AI portfolios."

In late August, the Wall Street Journal reported that Samsung, as well as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd., have discussed about building major new factories in the United Arab Emirates in coming years to meet the soaring demand for AI computing. It is expected that the potential projects in the UAE could cost more than $100 billion.

Meanwhile, Samsung is said to be planning to reduce its global workforce by thousands, with layoffs impacting workers in Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, but not in its home market. The Job cuts could affect approximately 10 percent of the staff in these regions, Bloomberg reported.