KIOXIA has introduced the GP1 Series PCIe 6.0 NVMe SSD, the first product in its GP Series of Super High IOPS drives optimized for GPU direct access. KIOXIA describes it as building on the GP Series technology it introduced in March, now realized in shipping silicon. Built around second-generation KIOXIA XL-FLASH memory, the drive is meant to serve as a flash-based memory extension tier for AI systems that need lower latency and faster access to large datasets.
The GP1 Series extends High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) with a high-speed flash storage layer. Instead of relying only on adding more HBM, AI platforms can use flash memory to expand capacity and improve GPU utilization. KIOXIA says this approach reduces the cost of scaling AI memory compared to expanding HBM alone.
KIOXIA GP1 Specifications
Specification | Details | |---|---| | Interface | PCIe 6.0, NVMe 2.2 | | Flash Memory | KIOXIA XL-FLASH generation 2 low-latency flash memory | | Random Read Performance | Up to 10 million random read IOPS (512-byte block size) | | Form Factors | E3.S, E1.S 9.5mm, E1.S 15mm | | Cooling Support | Cold-plate liquid cooling supported on E3.S and E1.S 9.5mm models; all form factors also support traditional air-cooled environments | | Endurance | Up to 50 DWPD |
The GP1 delivers up to 10 million random-read IOPS at a 512-byte block size, with KIOXIA noting the usual caveat that real-world numbers vary by host, drivers, and workload. The company says the architecture is designed to scale from today’s 10 million random read IOPS to future generations targeting up to 100 million IOPS.
The drives use KIOXIA’s second-generation XL-FLASH memory, designed to provide lower latency and finer-grained 512-byte data access than conventional TLC-based SSDs. KIOXIA says this also reduces power consumed per I/O operation, an important factor for dense AI deployments. That is the dividing line between this drive and the CM10 KIOXIA announced days earlier: the CM10 is a capacity-oriented enterprise drive on 332-layer BiCS FLASH generation 10 TLC, while the GP1 trades capacity for latency and IOPS on XL-FLASH.
“The AI memory wall is a critical challenge for our industry to solve on the way to growing the scale and capability of AI deployment,” said Neville Ichhaporia, senior vice president and general manager of the SSD business unit at KIOXIA America. “KIOXIA’s XL-FLASH is uniquely positioned to deliver the extremely high performance and low-latency data access needed to support GPUs as a memory extension tier. It also offers a significantly lower cost per gigabyte than expanding in-node HBM or DRAM capacity.”
Several enterprise form factors will be available, including E3.S and E1.S in 9.5mm and 15mm heights. The E3.S and E1.S 9.5mm versions support cold-plate liquid cooling. All models can operate in traditional air-cooled server environments.
KIOXIA GP1 Availability
KIOXIA plans to provide evaluation samples of the GP1 Series to select customers by the end of 2026, noting that the samples are for functional check purposes only and that final specifications may differ in mass production. The drives will be shown at FMS: the Future of Memory and Storage, taking place August 4 to 6 in Santa Clara, California.