SanDisk said AI inference is reshaping flash memory demand, with data centers expected to become the largest source of NAND consumption by 2026 and industry flash revenue total addressable market rising from a historical cyclical midpoint of about $60 billion to more than $300 billion by 2027, moving toward $500 billion thereafter. The company said key-value, or KV, cache could account for 35% of AI data center NAND workloads by 2030 and add 75 to 100 exabytes of NAND demand by 2027, potentially doubling by 2028 as longer context windows, retrieval-augmented generation, multimodal models and agent applications increase inference storage needs. SanDisk also said it is using structured pricing and prepayment-style multi-year agreements with large customers to smooth NAND's boom-bust cycle; eight customers are participating, with average contract terms of more than four years, about half of bit supply expected to be covered by FY2027, and total contract value of about $93.9 billion at floor prices. Separately, CNBC reported on Aug. 14 that JPMorgan upgraded SanDisk to overweight from neutral and set a $2,250 price target, implying about 47% upside from Thursday's close, saying the new commercial framework could improve margins and reduce cyclicality.