Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (KRX: 005930) has unveiled what it claims is the industry’s fastest Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 5.0 solution, marking a significant step toward supporting the growing demands of on-device artificial intelligence applications in future smartphones, wearables, and extended reality (XR) devices.
The new storage solution arrives as generative AI workloads increasingly move from cloud environments to devices, driving demand for faster data processing, lower latency, and improved power efficiency. Samsung said its latest UFS 5.0 technology is designed to address those requirements by delivering substantially higher performance while reducing energy consumption.
Built on the latest JEDEC embedded memory interface standard, the UFS 5.0 solution offers bandwidth of up to 10.8 gigabytes per second (GB/s). According to Samsung, the storage delivers sequential read speeds of up to 10.8GB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 9.5GB/s, more than double the performance of the company’s previous UFS 4.1 generation.
The company said the performance gains are expected to improve responsiveness when running large language models (LLMs) and other AI workloads directly on devices. Faster storage access can help reduce latency and accelerate the handling of large datasets required for AI-powered applications.
“In the era of on-device AI, storage devices are evolving into a key driver defining AI experiences,” said Jangseok Choi, Head of Memory Product Planning at Samsung Electronics. He added that the company intends to continue driving innovation for next-generation mobile platforms.
Beyond performance, Samsung highlighted improvements in power efficiency. The company said UFS 5.0 delivers more than 40% better power efficiency compared with its UFS 4.1 solution. The gains are achieved through technologies including clock gating and multi-voltage operation, which reduce the power required for data transfers while helping extend battery life in mobile devices.
Samsung has also reduced the physical footprint of the storage package. Measuring 7.5mm x 13mm x 0.9mm, the new module is approximately 16.7% smaller than its predecessor, providing device manufacturers with greater design flexibility and more efficient use of internal space.
The company sees applications extending beyond flagship smartphones to AI wearables and XR devices, sectors expected to benefit from increasing on-device AI processing capabilities.
Samsung plans to begin mass production of UFS 5.0 in the fourth quarter of this year, with storage capacities reaching up to 1 terabyte (TB). The launch positions the company to capitalize on growing demand for high-performance memory solutions as AI becomes an increasingly central feature of next-generation consumer electronics.
