Kioxia Launches CM10 Series: First PCIe 6.0 Enterprise SSD for AI KV Cache Workloads
Key Takeaways
- ▸Kioxia's first PCIe 6.0 enterprise SSD, built on BiCS FLASH generation 10 TLC memory with significantly higher performance than previous generation
- ▸Purpose-built for AI infrastructure: designed to support NVIDIA CMX context memory storage for KV cache workloads, addressing GPU memory bottlenecks in large-scale AI models
- ▸Offers 92% higher sequential read and 85% higher random read performance than CM9 Series, with multiple form factors (E3.S, E1.S, 2.5-inch) and capacities up to 61.44TB
Summary
Kioxia has unveiled the CM10 Series, its first PCIe 6.0 enterprise SSD and its first enterprise drive built on BiCS FLASH generation 10 TLC memory. The new drives are available in E3.S, E1.S, and 2.5-inch form factors with capacities ranging from 1.60TB to 61.44TB, designed specifically to support AI inference and key-value (KV) cache workloads.
The CM10 Series is engineered to work with NVIDIA's CMX context memory storage solution, which extends GPU memory by providing a high-speed, shared flash tier for temporary KV cache storage. As AI models scale to trillions of parameters and agentic AI context windows expand to millions of tokens, this tiered approach allows infrastructure designers to reduce the pressure on expensive GPU memory while maintaining high-speed access to critical context data.
The drives deliver significant performance gains compared to the previous CM9 Series, with up to 92% higher sequential read performance and 85% higher random read performance. Advanced features include optional direct liquid cooling for select models, NVMe 2.1 support, OCP Datacenter NVMe SSD Specification 2.7 compliance, NVMe Flexible Data Placement, dual-port connectivity, and comprehensive security options including post-quantum cryptography and FIPS 140-3 support. The CM10 Series is currently in sampling phase with select customers for functional testing.
- Advanced features include optional liquid cooling, NVMe 2.1 support, flexible data placement, dual-port connectivity, and enterprise-grade security with post-quantum cryptography
Editorial Opinion
The CM10 represents a critical inflection point for enterprise storage in the AI era: as LLMs scale beyond GPU memory constraints, high-performance flash storage is becoming as essential to AI infrastructure as accelerators themselves. Kioxia's PCIe 6.0 positioning and tight alignment with NVIDIA's CMX ecosystem signals that the storage industry has fully internalized the commodity storage problem—this is no longer about general-purpose data center drives, but about specialized hardware optimized for the memory hierarchy of trillion-parameter AI. The real competition now is not between storage vendors, but between architectural approaches to managing AI context—and Kioxia has clearly bet on the tiered approach.
