KIOXIA Unveils NX1 PCIe 5.0 SSDs with Direct Liquid Cooling for AI Data Centres
New E1.S NVMe SSDs combine PCIe 5.0 performance, direct liquid cooling support, and next-generation controller architecture to deliver higher throughput, improved thermal efficiency, and greater storage density for GPU-powered AI and hyperscale infrastructure.
KIOXIA America, Inc. announced the KIOXIA NX1 Series of solid-state drives (SSDs), a new generation of E1.S PCIe® 5.0 NVMe™ data centre SSDs, and Kioxia’s first SSD with direct liquid cooling support. The KIOXIA NX1 Series features Kioxia’s next-generation, in-house developed controller architecture enabling unique capabilities today while providing a foundation for future features. The new drives are engineered to deliver high-performance, power-efficient storage for GPU-enabled servers and hyperscale data centre environments.
The KIOXIA NX1 Series is the successor model of the XD series, and leverages PCIe 5.0 performance to help cloud providers and hyperscale operators optimise infrastructure while maintaining operational efficiency. Compared to the previous generation1, KIOXIA NX1 SSDs deliver up to 38% higher sequential write performance and up to 20% higher random write performance2.
As AI infrastructure continues to scale, storage must keep pace with increasingly dense, accelerator-rich server designs. The E1.S form factor helps maximise storage density while supporting advanced thermal management, including cold-plate-compatible direct liquid cooling configurations that enable efficient heat dissipation in high-performance AI server environments.
Key features of the KIOXIA NX1 Series include:
- Available in E1.S 9.5 mm (supports direct liquid cooling and air cooling) and E1.S 15 mm form factor (supports air cooling)
- Capacities ranging from 1.92 TB to 15.36 TB3 with read-intensive endurance (1 DWPD)
- Compliant with PCIe 5.0, NVMe 2.0 and Open Compute Project (OCP) Datacenter NVMe SSD 2.6 specifications, as well as NVMe Flexible Data Placement (FDP) support
- Built with KIOXIA BiCS FLASH™ generation 8 TLC memory technology utilising CMOS directly Bonded to Array (CBA) architecture
- Optional TCG Opal-compliant Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) security model4, 5
"E1.S form factor SSDs are becoming increasingly important for AI and hyperscale system designs, keeping high-speed flash storage close to the CPU and GPU," said Neville Ichhaporia, senior vice president and general manager of the SSD business unit at KIOXIA America, Inc. "With the KIOXIA NX1 Series, we're delivering the performance, thermal flexibility and storage density customers need to support the next generation of GPU-enabled infrastructure."
