SK Hynix Unveils New High-Performance SSD for AI PCs at NVIDIA GTC

'PCB01' Development Completed in First Half, Launch Within the Year

SK Hynix announced on the 20th that it unveiled a consumer product based on the new solid-state drive (SSD) 'PCB01' at the world's largest artificial intelligence (AI) developer conference, 'GTC (GPU Technology Conference) 2024,' hosted by NVIDIA in San Jose, California, USA.

SK Hynix's PCIe 5th generation SSD 'PCB01' for PC OEMs. Photo by SK Hynix

PCB01 is evaluated as a product that achieves industry-leading speeds, capable of continuously reading data at 14GB (gigabytes) per second and continuously writing data at 12GB per second. This is twice as fast as the previous generation. It can load large language models (LLM) required for AI training and inference within one second.

Regarding PCB01, SK Hynix stated, "It is a PCIe 5th generation SSD installed in on-device AI PCs. We have recently completed performance and reliability verification of this product with major global customers." They added, "We plan to complete the development of PCB01 in the first half of this year and release products for large customers and general consumers within the year."

PC manufacturers design the structure to implement on-device AI by storing LLMs in the PC's internal storage and transferring data to DRAM within a short time once AI tasks begin. In this process, SK Hynix expects that the PCB01 installed inside the PC will quickly support LLM loading, significantly enhancing the speed and quality of on-device AI.

PCB01 improves power efficiency by 30% compared to the previous generation, contributing to increased efficiency during large-scale AI computation tasks. SK Hynix's engineers also applied 'SLC caching' technology to this product. This technology operates part of the NAND storage area cells as fast SLC, allowing only the necessary data to be read and written quickly. SLC caching also helps speed up general PC tasks beyond AI services.

Yoon Jae-yeon, Vice President of SK Hynix, said, "PCB01 is an industry-leading performance product that will be highly regarded not only in AI PCs but also in the high-end PC market such as gaming and high-spec PCs." He added, "Through this, we will solidify our position as the 'Global No.1 AI Memory Company' not only in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) but also in the on-device AI field."