Kioxia Holding Co., Ltd. will build a second memory manufacturing building in Kitakami City, Iwate Prefecture, with investments expected to exceed 1 trillion yen [1].
The expansion comes as the global proliferation of artificial intelligence drives a surge in demand for high-capacity memory. By increasing production capacity, Kioxia aims to maintain a competitive edge in the next-generation semiconductor market.
President Hiroo Ota said the company intends to produce and ship highly competitive products to customers worldwide from this facility. He said the rise of AI has caused memory demand to spike, making the development of 10th-generation NAND essential to meet those needs [2].
The new facility is designed to produce 10th-generation BiCS FLASH, which features a capacity of one terabit [3]. This technology represents a significant leap in density, with memory cell stacking increasing by approximately 52 percent, moving from 218 layers to 332 layers [3].
Construction was scheduled to begin in the second half of 2024 [1]. Once operational, the second manufacturing building is expected to employ approximately 2,700 people [4], further establishing Iwate Prefecture as a critical hub for semiconductor production.
While some reports indicate the facility has been presented to the media, the company's primary planning documents focused on the construction phase starting in 2024 [1, 4]. The investment underscores the scale of capital required to compete in the current AI-driven hardware race.
“Investments expected to exceed 1 trillion yen”
This massive investment reflects the critical role of NAND flash memory in AI infrastructure. As large language models and AI applications require increasingly vast amounts of data storage and rapid access speeds, the shift toward 300-plus layer stacking is no longer optional but a necessity for survival in the semiconductor industry. Kioxia's move to scale production in Japan also highlights the strategic effort to secure domestic supply chains against global volatility.
