Toshiba to double AI data-center HDD output in ¥60bn plan

Toshiba will invest about ¥60 billion, roughly $380 million, to double production capacity for the hard-disk drives that AI data centers use as cheap bulk storage, with the expansion scheduled to complete by fiscal 2027. Nikkei Asia reported it as the company's "first major HDD investment in roughly five years," routed through its Philippine plant.

The commercial ambition is specific. Toshiba holds just over 10% of the HDD market when measured by storage capacity today, according to Nikkei, and is targeting a medium-term share of around 30%. The new lines will deliver up to 40% higher per-unit capacity, and feed plans for mass production of 65-terabyte-class HDDs in 2030, with 100-terabyte-class drives after that.

Why hard disks for an AI buildout. SSDs read and write faster than spinning platters, but they cost around 20 times more, which keeps HDDs lodged in the warm and cold storage tiers behind every GPU cluster. Our AI infrastructure tracker has logged 448 stories in the last 90 days, and the storage layer is where this cycle's capex is now showing up most clearly.

Nikkei's piece is bylined Keigo Yoshida from Manila. It names no customer commitments, publishes no unit-count target, and quotes no Toshiba executive on how the climb from just over 10% to around 30% share is sequenced.