Kioxia begins site preparation for new manufacturing building in Kitakami

Kioxia has commenced site preparation for a third manufacturing building (K3) at its Kitakami plant in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. The company aims to have the facility operational by fiscal year 2029 to expand the production capacity of its ‘BiCS FLASH’ 3D NAND flash memory.

The expansion is intended to meet growing long-term demand driven by the rise of AI technologies, including agentic, physical, and on-device AI, which require high-speed data storage for large-scale training and inference. While the site preparation is underway, Kioxia stated that specific construction timelines and the scale of equipment investment will be determined based on market trends and Japanese government support.

In a joint announcement, Kioxia and SanDisk indicated plans to invest more than $31 billion in Japan by 2032. This investment covers production facilities, infrastructure, and technological enhancements at both the Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants to bolster the NAND flash supply chain for data centers, servers, and mobile devices.