It may become harder — and more expensive — to find certain hard drives this year.
Western Digital CEO Irving Tan said the company is already “pretty much" sold out of its hard disk drive capacity for 2026, citing strong demand tied to artificial intelligence.
Tan made the comments during the company’s quarterly earnings call, where he also reported revenue of $3.02 billion, up 25% from a year earlier. He attributed the growth to demand from what he called an “AI-driven data economy.”
Tan said Western Digital has secured purchase orders with its top seven customers.
RELATED STORY | AI safety shake-up: Top researchers quit OpenAI and Anthropic, warning of risks
“Western Digital’s strong performance this quarter reflects our disciplined execution to meet demand in the AI-driven data economy, and the confidence our customers place in our ability to deliver reliable, high-capacity HDDs at scale,” Tan said.
Industry analysts say heavy demand from large data center operators and AI companies is tightening supply for some hard disk drives. Large technology companies building AI systems require enormous amounts of storage. When supply is constrained, and demand remains high, prices often rise.
