The AI infrastructure giant locks in priority access to ultra-high-capacity solid-state drives as demand for GPU cloud services accelerates
CoreWeave signed a multi-year agreement with Solidigm, the Intel-spun-off flash storage maker, guaranteeing priority access to solid-state drives as CoreWeave races to build out data centers fast enough to keep up with demand.
What the partnership actually looks like
This isn’t a fresh relationship. CoreWeave and Solidigm have been working together for years, deploying QLC (quad-level cell) SSDs across CoreWeave’s GPU infrastructure. Jacob Yundt, a CoreWeave executive, has previously described the partnership as “incredible” for data center effectiveness.
The two companies are now co-engineering drives specifically optimized for AI workloads. That includes native direct-to-chip liquid cooling for SSDs, a technology that addresses the heat density that increases when cramming 122-terabyte drives into GPU clusters.
For context, 122TB in a single drive is enormous. Most consumer SSDs top out around 4TB. Enterprise drives typically max out at 30TB or so.
Why storage is the quiet bottleneck in AI infrastructure
QLC SSDs offer a compelling balance for AI workloads. They’re denser and cheaper per terabyte than other NAND flash architectures, which makes them well-suited for the read-heavy data pipelines that characterize AI training. The trade-off is typically lower write endurance, but for workloads that are mostly about reading massive datasets, that’s an acceptable compromise.
CoreWeave’s bigger picture
Earlier in 2025, CoreWeave secured an $11.9 billion commitment from OpenAI. In March 2026, the company added a multi-year partnership with Perplexity. CoreWeave’s acquisition of Core Scientific for approximately $9 billion gave it access to substantial power capacity. Core Scientific was previously a Bitcoin mining operation, meaning CoreWeave essentially converted crypto mining infrastructure into AI compute capacity.
