Research Reports

QLC SSDs Rise: Agentic AI Redefines CSP Storage

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Last Modified

2026-09-22

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To address the surging KV cache demand driven by the development of agentic AI, cloud service providers are shifting their procurement toward high-performance QLC SSDs. By leveraging their high density and cost efficiency, combined with 'write-once, read-many' operating patterns and advanced attention compression techniques, QLC SSDs effectively overcome capacity bottlenecks while reducing hardware wear, making them the mainstream configuration for advanced storage units.

Key Highlights

  • Demand Driver: Expanding context windows in agentic AI cause KV cache demand to explode, prompting cloud providers to shift from traditional setups to QLC SSD PODs.
  • Cost & Density: QLC delivers higher density at lower cost. Its limited endurance and latency are mitigated by AI's write-once, read-many access pattern.
  • Algorithmic Efficiency: Advanced attention compression techniques drastically lower write frequency and storage footprints, reducing drive wear.
  • Market Adoption: Major tech firms are rapidly deploying QLC SSDs. As memory demands scale, broader market transition remains inevitable.

Table of Contents

  1. CSPs’ Changes to Purchase Sentiment on SSD POD: Key Factors behind Emergence of QLC SSD
  2. Most CSPs’ Previous Procurement Focused on TLC SSD + HDD for SSD POD Configuration
  3. Demand for KV Cache at Agentic AI Phase
    • Schematics of Training and Inference (Agentic AI) Flow
    • Comparison of Capacity Required by KV Cache and HBM Capacity of GB300 NVL72
    • Architecture of AI Inference
  4. Advantages of QLC in Agentic AI Applications
    • Structure of 3D NAND
    • Comparison of Enterprise SSD Technology
    • Comparison of Non-Agentic AI and Agentic AI Application Flows
    • Comparison of Read/Write Tokens for KV Cache of Claude Code
  5. QLC Applications under Improved Algorithms
    • DeepSeek’s HCA Architecture
  6. Market Dynamics
    • Release Timeline of Mainstream AI Agents
    • Conversion Process of TurboQuant Polar Coordinates

<Total Pages: 10>

Comparison of Capacity Required by KV Cache and HBM Capacity of GB300 NVL72





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