With the current AI boom, prices of RAM and SSDs have increased drastically due to high demand from AI data centres. The rising prices are now affecting consumers as well, with manufacturers raising the prices of smartphones and laptops.
With a shortage of supplies and huge demand in the market, it would be a big relief if there were more suppliers in the market. Seems like Lenovo has already started looking for options.
While reviewing a Lenovo ThinkBook laptop (Lenovo ThinkBook 14 G9 IPL) @Notebookcheck found that it comes with China’s YMTC SSD.
Chinese SSD arrives on a Lenovo laptop
It was discovered that a Lenovo laptop- ThinkBook 14 G9 IPL arrives with a 512GB M.2 2242 SSD made by China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC). This SSD is an NVMe PCIe 4.0 model. The laptop is already available for purchase in the US. This is the first time a major OEM is being sold in the US with a YMTC SSD, since YMTC is also listed as a Chinese military company.
In the testing, it was discovered that the drive delivers speed below average for an SSD in an office laptop, with sequential read speeds of up to 3950 MB/s and write speeds of up to 2514 MB/s, respectively.
But still, the Chinese storage appears to now be entering the global laptop supply chain. With limited SSD suppliers like Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, Kioxia or Western Digital, more SSD suppliers making their way into mainstream laptops could help maintain SSD and laptop prices, as laptop manufacturers have more options available. It is also a great opportunity for other SSD suppliers to enter the market.
Lenovo’s use of a YMTC SSD appears to be part of a wider shift as demand for AI reshapes the memory market.
