The 5th GMIF Innovation Summit (Global Memory Innovation Forum 2026, GMIF2026) recently concluded at the Renaissance Shenzhen Bay Hotel, co-hosted by the Shenzhen Memory Industry Association (SMIA) and the School of Integrated Circuits, Peking University. Themed "The Future Built on AI Memory and Storage," the summit brought together leading companies, technical experts, and industry leaders from across the global memory and semiconductor value chain to examine new trends, demands, and partnerships in the AI era, with the token economy as a key perspective.
To recognize the contributions of companies across the value chain, the summit established the GMIF2026 Annual Awards, spanning memory and storage, compute, packaging and testing equipment, test systems, and end applications. Winners were evaluated on technology innovation, industry contribution, market service, and application results. The list highlights the strengths of the honorees in their respective segments and traces the technology roadmap of the memory and storage industry in the era of large models.
Leading the AI Memory & Storage Industry: Core Technology Breakthroughs and Joint Compute Ecosystem Building
As the AI memory and storage industry accelerates, innovators and leaders across memory, compute, open-source LLM platforms, servers, and end applications are driving industry upgrades through core technology breakthroughs and long-term ecosystem contributions.
Samsung Semiconductor (Outstanding AI Memory & Storage Industry Leadership Award): A global leader in the memory supply chain, Samsung continues to guide the direction of DRAM and NAND technology. It has pioneered zNAND-O 3D architecture, V10 NAND with more than 400 layers, and CXL memory, accelerating inference, large-scale compute expansion, and intelligent storage while providing key support for global AI infrastructure.
Samsung Semiconductor awarded the Outstanding AI Memory & Storage Industry Leadership Award. Credit: GMIF
Sandisk (Outstanding NAND Technology Breakthrough Award): Drawing on deep vertically integrated manufacturing capabilities, Sandisk continues to reshape storage architecture for the AI era. It introduced its CBA scaling strategy to significantly improve storage density and energy efficiency, and has led the development and strategy of high-bandwidth flash (HBF), supporting the evolution of next-generation AI inference architectures.
SanDisk honored with the Outstanding NAND Technology Breakthrough Award. Credit: GMIF
Solidigm (Outstanding AI SSD Technology Innovation Award): A leader in enterprise data storage, Solidigm builds on decades of product leadership and technical innovation to help customers transform their businesses. Its end-to-end portfolio, from the core data center to the edge, supports AI and other frontier fields.
Solidigm honored with the Outstanding AI SSD Technology Innovation Award. Credit: GMIF
CXMT (Outstanding DRAM Technology Innovation Award): As a leading DRAM company in China, CXMT achieved the first full-platform launch of LPDDR6, a significant step forward in high-end memory standards. Its IDM model and continuous iteration serve PC, mobile, server, and AI compute applications, with steadily rising shipments, and its R&D investment and volume production capability have played a key role in making the DRAM supply chain self-reliant.
CXMT honored with the Outstanding DRAM Technology Innovation Award. Credit: GMIF
Arm (Outstanding AI Computing Ecosystem Contribution Award): Built on energy-efficient architecture and its "Arm Total Design" ecosystem, Arm's unified compute platform spans cloud, edge, and physical AI, and has brought together more than 22 million developers worldwide. Innovative licensing and hardware-software co-optimization have significantly lowered the barrier to customizing AI infrastructure, and Arm's long-term support for green computing and academic-industry collaboration contributes to an open, diverse, and sustainable compute ecosystem.
Lenovo (Outstanding AI Infrastructure Leadership Award): Lenovo advances its hybrid AI strategy and continues to build full-stack AI infrastructure across devices, edge, cloud, and network. With leading AI servers, liquid cooling, AI factory solutions, and end-to-end intelligent services, it provides a solid compute foundation for industries and helps move AI from technical innovation to large-scale application.
Dify (Outstanding AI Open-Source Platform Contribution Award): As a leading open-source LLM application development platform, Dify has reshaped AI agent development with its "AI App OS" concept. Visual workflow orchestration and a powerful RAG engine lower the barrier to building AI applications and speed the path.
For the complete list of GMIF 2026 storage technology award winners, please visit the official event website.