Google’s unveiling of a revolutionary AI compression technique sent shockwaves through the memory and storage sector, triggering a broad market selloff.
SanDisk shares dropped 11.02% to close at $603.17 on the New York Stock Exchange on March 26, the steepest single-day decline among U.S. memory companies. The selloff followed Google researchers’ announcement of TurboQuant, a compression technology that reportedly boosts AI inference speeds by a factor of eight while using just one-sixth of the memory typically required.
The impact spread globally. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix shares fell 4.71% and 6.23%, respectively. Japan’s Kioxia dropped around 6% on the Tokyo market.
SanDisk had already slipped 3% the previous day. The widespread losses among Asian memory makers compounded the pressure, contributing to the sharper 11% plunge on March 26.