Built for the long run: 25 years of Swissbit – Part 2

In the first part of this series, I looked back at the early choices that shaped Swissbit: the move away from volume-driven markets, the focus on industrial storage, and the decision to keep development, integration and manufacturing expertise close together in Europe. In this second part, I want to look at why those choices matter today – in a market being reshaped by NAND transitions, AI and cyber security.

In 2026, the NAND flash market is going through one of the deepest shifts I have seen in my career. Memory has always been cyclical, but the current situation is different. AI is reshaping semiconductor investments and capacity allocation while making memory a more critical system component across data centers, industrial infrastructure and edge AI devices. At the same time, prices are rising sharply in several areas, and some older NAND technologies are becoming economically difficult to sustain.

For industrial customers, this is a major change. Technologies such as SLC and MLC, long regarded as safe choices, are under pressure. Large semiconductor manufacturers are leaving certain segments. This is not only a sourcing challenge. It affects product life cycles, certifications, redesign efforts and long-term service commitments.

In this environment, value shifts from the NAND itself to the technology surrounding it. Controller design, firmware, qualification and manufacturing expertise become key differentiators. e.MMC is a good example: while the underlying NAND landscape is changing rapidly, long-term success increasingly depends on the ability to combine modern flash technologies with robust controllers, firmware and lifecycle management. Swissbit has invested in these capabilities for many years and brings them together in Europe.

The technology itself is changing, too. Modern TLC NAND is moving further into industrial applications. With pSLC modes, strong controller architectures, intelligent firmware, screening and qualification, it can meet requirements that were once associated mainly with SLC or MLC.

This shows an important point: industrial-grade storage is no longer defined by the NAND alone. It is defined by the complete system around it. The controller and firmware are often described as the brain of a storage product. They decide how data is managed, how errors are handled, how endurance is optimized and how the product behaves after years in the field. With the acquisition of Hyperstone in 2021, we strengthened this competence further.

Since generative AI became a global topic, everyone has been talking about GPUs, high-bandwidth memory and data centers. Understandably so.

But AI infrastructure is more than compute power. It includes servers, networks, management systems, security layers and edge devices in factories, robots and machines. Nearly all of them need reliable flash storage.

Often, this storage works quietly in the background. It stores operating systems, firmware, models, telemetry, configuration data, recovery images and security functions. In edge AI, it also has to withstand demanding conditions: temperature, latency, endurance and availability.

So yes, AI runs on powerful processors. But it also depends on memory that simply works.

The same is true for security. The more connected and software-defined systems become, the more memory and security move together. For Swissbit, this did not start yesterday. Our products were used early on as trusted data carriers for license management, system protection and cryptographic applications. Since 2013, we have developed this into a dedicated security business.

A major step came with fiscalization in Germany. From 2020, cash register systems required a certified technical security element. Swissbit was among the first providers of such a TSE solution and became one of the leading suppliers in Germany.

Other products, such as the iShield Key for FIDO-based authentication, may look different from a storage card or SSD. But the foundation is familiar: controlled hardware, secure architecture, trusted production and long-term reliability.

Looking ahead, regulation will make this even more important. Signed firmware updates, vulnerability management and SBOMs are becoming mainstream expectations. Secure SSDs, full disk encryption and crypto-agile approaches all point in the same direction: for us, storage and cyber security are increasingly becoming one discipline.

After 25 years, Swissbit stands at a point where many early decisions are becoming more relevant, not less. We focused on industrial markets before they were widely seen as strategic. We kept manufacturing and integration expertise in Europe. We invested in firmware, controllers, advanced packaging and security. And we stayed close to customers whose products must work reliably for many years.

None of these decisions were made because they were fashionable. But they gave us technological depth. That depth is now becoming a strategic advantage. In a world shaped by AI, geopolitical uncertainty, supply-chain pressure and new regulation, customers need partners who understand the full path from silicon to system.

Memory has stepped out of the background. It has become a technological, economic and geopolitical factor. For Swissbit, that is both a challenge and an opportunity. We cannot predict every turn the market will take. But we can continue to do what has carried us from the beginning: build expertise, control critical technologies, stay close to industrial needs and turn complexity into reliable products.

That may sound less spectacular than the headlines around AI. But the systems that change the world depend on many things that must work. Reliable memory is one of them. And increasingly, the expertise behind it matters just as much.