Kioxia debuts its first liquid-cooled SSD as AI server thermal design moves beyond GPUs
The AMW Read
Kioxia becomes the second major SSD vendor after Solidigm to ship direct-liquid-cooled AI-server storage, signaling that cooling design is structurally extending from GPUs/CPUs to the storage tier.
Kioxia debuts its first liquid-cooled SSD as AI server thermal design moves beyond GPUs
Kioxia announced the NX1 series, a PCIe 5.0 NVMe datacenter SSD line succeeding its XD series, and began sampling it to select hyperscale customers, unveiling the product at the FMS: Future of Memory and Storage event in Santa Clara (August 4-6). The 9.5mm E1.S model is Kioxia's first drive to support direct liquid cooling (DLC) via a cold plate that channels coolant directly over the heat-generating package; a 15mm model remains air-cooled only. The NX1 series uses 8th-generation BiCS FLASH 3D TLC NAND, with capacities from 1.92TB to 15.36TB, and Kioxia cites up to 38% higher max sequential write and 20% higher max random write versus the prior XD8 generation. Per the AI Market Watch index, this is the first item matching Kioxia logged in the last 90 days against zero in the prior 90, within our name-matched, pipeline-ingested coverage.
The move follows Solidigm, which shipped a cold-plate liquid-cooled PCIe 5.0 SSD (D7-PS1010) in the same E1.S format in 2025 - so Kioxia is a fast-follower rather than a category creator. But two major suppliers converging on liquid-cooled storage signals a structural shift in AI server design: as GPU throughput rises, storage must stream data faster, pushing more heat and power draw onto the drive itself, while liquid-cooled GPUs and CPUs reduce the chassis airflow that used to cool everything else by default. Storage is becoming a distinct thermal-budget line item in AI rack design rather than an afterthought cooled by leftover airflow.
For builders speccing next-generation AI server racks, cold-plate loops for storage are now a real bill-of-materials consideration alongside GPU and CPU liquid cooling, not just a future possibility. Datacenter infrastructure buyers and vendors should watch whether liquid-cooled SSDs become a standard requirement as PCIe 5.0 adoption and per-drive capacities climb, since air-only cooling may increasingly bottleneck dense AI storage tiers even when GPU cooling is solved.