On March 25, SK hynix and Sandisk convened at the SanDisk headquarters in Milpitas, California, to launch a global standardization push for a new memory tier called HBF. The gathering marked the first formal step toward unifying the next‑generation flash technology that sits between high‑bandwidth memory and solid‑state drives.

HBF fills the performance‑capacity gap that current solutions leave open. While HBM delivers blistering bandwidth, SSDs offer bulk storage but lag in speed. HBF sits in between, delivering the capacity expansion and power efficiency that AI inference workloads demand as user demand for real‑time services climbs.

The consortium will launch a dedicated workstream under the Open Compute Project to shepherd HBF’s standardization. By aligning industry players, SK hynix and Sandisk aim to lay a foundation that lets the entire AI ecosystem grow together, ensuring that future inference engines can tap into a unified, high‑bandwidth flash layer.

With HBF’s promise of balanced speed, capacity, and power, the industry now has a clear target for building next‑generation inference hardware. The move signals a shift toward a more efficient AI delivery model, and the standardization effort will likely accelerate adoption across data centers and edge devices alike.