Before Computex 2025, Stefan Mandl, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan at Western Digital, shared his thoughts onCompleted the spin-off of SanDisk businessWhat is Western Digital’s strategy for developing its brand business going forward?
In February of this year, Western Digital announced the completion of its spin-off of its flash memory business, including the SanDisk brand. The company stated that its primary focus will be on the development of hard drive product technology. It also anticipates that the heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology it is currently developing will significantly increase the storage capacity of traditional hard drives. The company will continue to launch differentiated, scalable capacity product portfolios, providing users with continuously growing storage capacity options. The company will also leverage electromagnetics and materials science to advance traditional hard drive technology.
Earlier, SanDisk launched its WD_Black brandThe first PCIe Gen 5 SSD productIt also means that the SSD business that was previously under Western Digital will be transferred to SanDisk for development in the future, including the WD_Black brand product line created for the gaming market.
• Q: After the spin-off, what is Western Digital's future growth strategy? What are the main growth drivers? How will it differentiate from SanDisk's original business?
答:Western Digital is entering a new era of data storage, driven by the rapid growth of cloud computing and AI. We are committed to providing scalable, high-capacity storage solutions that create long-term value for our customers. With a focus on next-generation technology, sustainability, and operational excellence, we remain a trusted partner to the world's hyperscale cloud service providers, enterprise data centers, consumers, and content creation professionals.
Western Digital continues to deliver predictable capacity planning, cost-effective scalability, and sustainable innovation. Our customer-centric approach ensures we align with the evolving needs of hyperscalers, cloud service providers, and enterprise data centers.
Today, Western Digital's HDDs are the core backbone of the world's largest data infrastructure, providing unmatched total cost of ownership (TCO) advantages, large capacity, and high-quality scalable storage solutions.
Starting in 2026, the increasing performance of AI and the rapid development of generative AI applications (such as social media, digital video, and medical imaging) will significantly drive storage demand on both the ground and cloud sides. These highly data-intensive applications are expected to be the primary driver of future storage market growth.
Western Digital is committed to continuously driving innovation across its product portfolio to meet the growing demands of AI, cloud, and edge computing. From Western Digital's industry-leading energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) CMR hard drives and UltraSMR technology to heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) and beyond, Western Digital will continue to drive product innovation to create unparalleled long-term value for customers.
• With the current AI trend, will HDD still have a growth advantage? Especially with the increasing prevalence of inferential AI and more high-load cloud collaboration models, will more people turn to SSD-based storage needs?
答:As AI continues to drive data storage demands, Western Digital's HDDs will continue to benefit. While high-speed computing often gets the spotlight, AI workloads also rely on large amounts of data. From training datasets and model checkpoints to system logs and long-term archives, these require high-capacity storage devices.
Data stored on HDDs is the critical foundation driving AI innovation and offers unparalleled total cost of ownership (TCO) advantages. They are ideal for supporting AI workloads ranging from petabytes (PB) to exabytes (EB) of data, making them crucial for the efficient scaling of AI applications.
Therefore, AI is not a zero-sum competition; the expansion of its ecosystem relies on the dual-axis drive and mutual complementation of HDD and flash memory technologies.
• In the current HDD market, what is Western Digital's competitive advantage over brands like Seagate? Given that competitors have already launched 36TB drives and are continuously expanding their HAMR-based Mozaic 3+ technology platform, what technologies will Western Digital use to counter this?
答:While HAMR technology has been under development for over a decade, we have consistently adopted a cautious and customer-centric approach, investing in the development of ePMR, UltraSMR, and HAMR technologies simultaneously. This strategy provides customers with the flexibility to choose current market-proven high-capacity solutions while smoothly transitioning to HAMR when the time is most economical.
Our customers are striving to maximize storage capacity while ensuring the best total cost of ownership (TCO). Whether leveraging ePMR, UltraSMR, or future HAMR technologies, Western Digital offers a comprehensive and unique advantage. We continue to push capacity boundaries with our ePMR and UltraSMR hard drive products, including the industry-leading 26TB CMR and 36TB UltraSMR solutions, enabling customers to efficiently scale their storage infrastructure immediately and at a low TCO.
Western Digital anticipates that HAMR technology will demonstrate significant economic benefits once drive capacities exceed 40TB. Currently, we are conducting joint testing with two hyperscale cloud customers and anticipate completing product validation by the end of 2026, with mass production shipments expected in the first half of 2027.
With our leadership in ePMR and UltraSMR, as well as core technology innovations including OptiNAND, Western Digital is confident that this technical experience will help shorten customers' product validation timelines.
• Given that global governments are currently calling for green energy and zero carbon emissions, and the increasing attention being paid to electricity consumption issues due to the development of AI, how will Western Digital respond?
答:Western Digital is committed to providing sustainable storage solutions with a strong focus on energy efficiency and environmental responsibility. This strategy reflects our deep understanding of global green energy trends and the importance of developing energy-efficient solutions, especially as energy demands from data centers and AI workloads continue to rise.
In its own operations, Western Digital has already achieved several sustainability goals ahead of schedule, including: using 2030% renewable energy by 100, reducing water withdrawal by 20%, diverting more than 95% of waste from landfills, and achieving net zero carbon emissions at the operational level by 2032.
Western Digital is also pioneering innovative recycling programs to address the use of rare earth elements (REEs) in hard drive manufacturing. Working with partners like Microsoft and Critical Materials Recycling (CMR), we have developed an environmentally friendly chemical process to recover rare earth elements and other high-value materials from end-of-life hard drives, significantly reducing environmental impact and promoting a circular economy.
This approach not only reduces waste generation and the need for raw material mining, but also significantly lowers greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional treatment methods, fully demonstrating Western Digital's firm commitment to environmental protection and resource sustainability.
• How will Western Digital continue to strengthen HDD’s advantages in enterprise applications in the future?
答:With its focus on innovation, continued investment in next-generation technologies, and commitment to operational excellence, Western Digital will continue to create long-term value for customers, shareholders, and the industry as a whole.
For decades, Western Digital has been a core enabler of the world's critical data storage needs. From driving the rise of cloud computing to enabling the latest innovations in AI applications, our technology heritage has laid the foundation for cloud and enterprise storage architectures. Today, as data volumes continue to grow at unprecedented rates, businesses face increasing challenges in capacity management, cost control, sustainability, and operational efficiency.
Western Digital offers a clear roadmap for technology evolution. With the industry's first 32TB hard drive and a roadmap to 50TB and beyond, we enable businesses to confidently scale their storage infrastructure without disrupting operations. Through a customer-centric partnership model, we collaborate with hyperscalers, cloud service providers, and enterprise data centers to create solutions that optimize performance, reduce costs, and align with sustainability goals.
Western Digital's continued investment in next-generation storage technologies, seamless technology transitions, and vertically integrated manufacturing ensures businesses can efficiently scale their storage infrastructure. As AI-driven workloads demand ever-increasing capacity and reliability, Western Digital continues to serve as a trusted partner, delivering predictable capacity leadership, total cost efficiencies, and continuous innovation.
In this data-first era, we help businesses store, protect and unlock the value of their information, now and into the future.
• In the Asia-Pacific market (especially Taiwan, Southeast Asia, etc.), which areas or market demands make Western Digital optimistic about the continued development of HDDs?
答:The Asia-Pacific region remains a strategically important market for Western Digital. We partner with the world's largest hyperscale enterprises, cloud service providers, and OEMs in the region, driven by continued strong demand for high-capacity, cost-effective storage solutions.
The rapid development of AI and cloud computing in the Asia-Pacific region has further driven demand for our high-capacity HDD solutions.
According to forecasts, Taiwan's data center storage market revenue will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2025% between 2029 and 9.21. As Taiwan's demand for data storage continues to rise, driven by the accelerated adoption of cloud computing and the need for efficient data management, the market is clearly shifting towards cloud-based solutions.
At the same time, the increasing popularity of mobile technology and the expansion of the e-commerce market are further driving data center demand for secure and scalable storage infrastructure. As digital transformation continues to deepen, businesses and consumers will increasingly rely on data-driven business models, further driving steady demand for Western Digital's storage solutions.
In the Taiwanese market, smart video surveillance applications are also experiencing strong demand, another key area of Western Digital's HDD development and strategic planning. According to forecasts, Taiwan's AI smart surveillance market will achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2024% between 2030 and 25.2, making it the fastest-growing market in the Asia-Pacific region.
The demand for security surveillance in urban areas is driving the rapid growth of smart video surveillance, which in turn brings huge data storage challenges. There is an urgent need for storage solutions that are cost-effective, large-capacity, highly reliable and secure, and can be preserved for a long time and meet compliance standards.
Western Digital is committed to continuously providing high-capacity, high-quality storage solutions to meet the diverse and growing needs of our customers.
