Don't Forget About Western Digital Amid Sandisk Euphoria

Sandisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) has been the hottest banal successful the S&P 500, with an 820% year-to-date gain. That return, positive Micron Technology's (NASDAQ: MU) precocious achieved $1 trillion marketplace cap, makes it casual for investors to hide astir Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC), different representation banal that is benefiting from the AI build-out.

If you already person Sandisk and Micron shares, Western Digital whitethorn beryllium a bully summation to consider.

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Western Digital is profoundly integrated successful the AI roar

Western Digital specializes successful hard disk drives that assistance AI chips execute astatine their best. These devices fto AI chips store immense amounts of data, which is much important fixed the precocious measurement of information from AI grooming and inference.

The company's endeavor hard disk drives were capable to output 45% year-over-year gross maturation successful its fiscal 2026 3rd quarter. Western Digital besides delivered 11% sequential gross growth. High sequential maturation is simply a communal indicator of AI stocks that person much country to run. Sandisk and Micron some posted elevated sequential maturation portion guiding for further sequential maturation successful aboriginal quarters. Western Digital did the same.

Fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter gross is projected to beryllium $3.65 billion, which represents 9.4% sequential growth. Western Digital's hard disk drives are a captious furniture of AI infrastructure. Semiconductor chips request them, and arsenic hyperscalers load up connected much AI chips, they volition person to bargain much of Western Digital's hard disk drives.

The bullish thesis chiefly boils down to however overmuch you judge successful AI

Western Digital has the close merchandise astatine the close time. Its 333% year-to-date summation whitethorn consciousness pedestrian if you enactment it adjacent to Sandisk, but that instrumentality has outperformed astir each banal successful the full market. Western Digital CEO Irving Tan offered a elemental thesis for investors successful the Q3 fiscal twelvemonth 2026 property release.

"Virtually each AI workload, from training, inference, agentic AI to carnal AI, creates information that is stored persistently and cost-efficiently connected HDDs," Tan said.

Most forecasts suggest that the AI roar inactive has respective years left. Grand View Research pegs a 30.6% compound yearly maturation complaint (CAGR) done 2033, and determination are inactive 809 planned information centers. Each of those information centers volition request hard disk drives, and galore information halfway builders volition crook to Western Digital owed to its reliability.