Fueled by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, the storage market is currently grappling with significant supply-demand disparities. While Silicon Motion has outlined plans to roll out consumer-grade PCIe 6.0 controller chips by 2027, industry analyses suggest that the burgeoning demand from AI data centers will persist in intensifying constraints on NAND flash supplies. Data from TrendForce indicates that global NAND flash contract prices are projected to surge by 70%-75% on a quarter-over-quarter basis in the second quarter of 2026, with the supply-demand gap unlikely to be bridged throughout the year. Storage manufacturers are progressively reallocating their production capacities toward high-margin offerings such as High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and enterprise SSDs. This strategic shift has led to a diminished supply of mature-node products, including NOR Flash and Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND. Notably, NOR Flash prices have skyrocketed by over 100% in the first half of the year, while SLC NAND prices have witnessed a jump of 130%-150%. Forecasts indicate that high-capacity NOR Flash prices could escalate by an additional 60%-65% in the latter half of the year, with SLC NAND prices maintaining a growth trajectory of 70%-75%. Industrial and automotive-grade products are particularly vulnerable to acute shortage risks.