US firm Western Digital’s new Singapore CEO sees AI driving a ‘massive opportunity’ for …

US data storage giant Western Digital completed the planned separation of its flash business on Feb 21 this year, leaving it with its traditional hard-disk drive business.

Its new chief executive Irving Tan, who was appointed on the same day, sees artificial intelligence (AI) being a boost to the hard-disk drive industry.

“Looking ahead, we see massive opportunity. As AI accelerates and impacts industries around the world, and as companies generate and store more data, hard-disk drive exabyte shipments are expected to increase,” said Tan, who is Singaporean.

In a blog post titled “The future of hard-disk drives begins now”, he explained that much of the data stored by cloud service providers – such as native cloud application data, AI data lakes, media and machine learning data – runs on hard-disk drives.

Western Digital and Sandisk – its previous flash business – started trading their stocks as separate businesses on Feb 24.

Western Digital first announced on Oct 30, 2023, that it planned to separate its hard-disk drive and flash businesses, to create two independent, public companies with market-specific focus.

Tan said the Nasdaq-listed company has a “deep legacy” in hard-disk drive technology, enabling it to be a trusted partner for hyperscalers, cloud service providers and original equipment manufacturers.

The storage giant said the newly appointed CEO “reinforces Western Digital’s commitment to collaboration and operational excellence – ensuring the company continues to meet the needs of customers worldwide”.

“Given Western Digital’s global footprint, he frequently travels to the different markets, maintaining direct engagement with customers, teams and partners,” said the firm.

Western Digital has more than 40,000 employees based in 22 countries. It has more than 20 facilities supporting functions such as manufacturing, research and development, as well as regional business operations.

Western Digital told The Business Times that the staff numbers in the Singapore office are “currently growing”.

“We are committed to expanding our talent pool, to continue strengthening our capabilities in engineering and innovation, and delivering the best storage capabilities,” the company said.