Kioxia is planning a new fab at its Iwate production site in northern Japan to
increase capacity for AI-driven storage demand, people familiar with the matter
said. The project is expected to exceed 1 tln JPY (≈ $6.27 bln) and would be the
third plant on the site, producing Kioxia’s latest high‑density 3D stacked NAND
— the 10th‑generation BiCS flash — targeted at handling large-scale AI service
workloads. Kioxia began shipping stacked NAND last month. Kioxia and SanDisk are
expected to seek subsidies from the Japanese government; Tokyo has recently
provided fiscal support to TSMC, Sony Group and Micron. The company plans to
announce the expansion Thursday evening, the sources said.