Kioxia GP1 SSD reaches 10 million IOPS, sets sights on 100M IOPS
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KIOXIA Europe GmbH has unveiled the GP1 Series, a PCIe 6.0 NVMe SSD engineered for direct GPU access within demanding AI infrastructure — the first product in the KIOXIA GP Series introduced in early 2026.
The drive reaches up to 10 million random read IOPS at a 512-byte block size, using KIOXIA's XL-FLASH generation 2 flash memory, a type of SLC NAND paired with a new in-house controller.
Built to PCIe 6.0 and NVMe 2.2 specifications, the SSD carries an endurance rating of up to 50 drive writes per day (DWPD).
The GP1 Series is intended to support emerging AI storage architectures that extend high-bandwidth memory using a flash-based tier for capacity.
This approach allows AI systems to access considerably larger datasets at a lower cost than continually adding more high-bandwidth memory.
The company states that this method also improves GPU utilization by keeping processing units supplied with data instead of waiting idle.
IOPS measure how many read and write requests a storage device can process every second, directly shaping how quickly GPUs receive fresh data.
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In AI training and inference, thousands of parallel operations must move between storage and processing units without introducing costly delays.
Higher IOPS therefore reduce the risk of GPUs sitting idle while waiting for data, which can otherwise limit overall system performance.
KIOXIA's endurance claims for the GP1 Series offer a further measure of how the drive is positioned for sustained AI workloads.
Assuming a two-year warranty and a 3TB capacity, a 50 DWPD rating would translate into roughly 109.5 PB of total write endurance over that period.
By comparison, Gigabyte's AI TOP 100E drive claims an endurance rating of 219 PB, equivalent to a full year of continuous writing at maximum speed.
