Seagate sparks memory sell-off as CEO says it would 'take too long' to build new factories

2026-05-19 | original

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Why This Matters

Seagate's decision to sell off memory assets highlights the industry's challenges in rapidly scaling manufacturing capacity amid the AI boom. This move underscores concerns about supply chain constraints and the time-consuming nature of building new factories, which could impact the availability and pricing of memory chips crucial for data storage and AI infrastructure. For consumers and the tech industry, this signals potential shifts in storage hardware supply and costs in the near future.

Key Takeaways

Seagate is selling off memory assets due to manufacturing delays.
Building new factories takes too long to meet current demand.
Memory supply constraints could impact data storage hardware availability and prices.

Shares of data storage maker Seagate closed down more than 6% Monday, leading a group-wide sell-off, after comments from CEO Dave Mosley raised concerns about memory supply and demand fueled by the artificial intelligence buildout.

Mosley was asked at a JPMorgan conference on Monday what it would take to add unit or floor capacity in Seagate's factories.

"If we took the teams off and started building new factories or bringing up new machines, that would just take too long. You would end up with more capacity, but then you'd slow the rate of growth on that technology," Mosely said.

Seagate needs memory chips for its solid-state drives, which are used in data centers.

Shares of Micron , SanDisk and Western Digital Corp. all closed down roughly 5% lower.

Explore topics: seagate memory chips data centers solid-state drives micron