Fujifilm to invest 10 billion yen to expand magnetic tape capacity

Fujifilm has announced a 10 billion yen investment to expand its magnetic tape production capacity fivefold by fiscal year 2028. The expansion will take place at the company’s Odawara site in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, marking its largest investment in dedicated LTO tape facilities in approximately 20 years.

The company attributes the rising demand for magnetic tape to the exponential growth of data generated by generative AI and cloud services. While magnetic tape offers slower access speeds compared to SSDs or hard drives, it provides a cost-effective solution for long-term archiving and disaster recovery.

Crucially, physical tape can be removed from networks to create an “air gap,” protecting critical backups from ransomware and other cyberattacks. The expansion will primarily focus on the latest LTO-10 technology, which offers high storage capacities. Fujifilm is also collaborating with IBM on technologies to potentially increase future tape capacities up to 580TB.