Toshiba's $380M AI HDD Expansion Hits Seagate Shares 10%

A ¥60 billion investment will increase the output of hard disk drives for artificial intelligence workloads at a manufacturing site in the Philippines. Toshiba intends to double its production capacity for AI data centers by fiscal 2027, a move that triggered a 10% drop in Seagate shares and a 7% decline for Western Digital.

The expansion comes as demand for AI storage shifts toward HDDs because solid-state drives cost roughly 20 times more. Toshiba is targeting 65TB drives by 2030 and eventually 100TB capacities to address tight memory supply. The news surprised investors who had previously assumed the few remaining manufacturers in the HDD market would avoid aggressive growth to maintain restricted supply.