Been seeing a lot of buzz around Sandisk lately, so figured I'd dig into whether it's really the best AI company to invest in right now. The numbers are pretty wild — stock up 1,250% over the past year since Western Digital spun it off in February 2025. That's some serious momentum.

The story makes sense on the surface. Sandisk makes the high-speed storage devices that data centers need to handle all the compute-heavy AI training workloads. With everyone and their mother building out AI infrastructure, demand for these storage solutions has absolutely exploded. The shortage of supply relative to demand has been a goldmine for Sandisk — they've been able to push prices up aggressively. In their recent quarter, gross margins jumped to 51% from 30% the quarter before. Free cash flow nearly doubled. That's the kind of margin expansion that gets people excited.

But here's where I think people might be getting ahead of themselves. This shortage environment isn't permanent. Micron and Samsung have already started ramping production to meet demand, which means prices are eventually going to normalize. When supply catches up to demand, Sandisk loses a lot of its pricing power. The stock is up another 125% just in 2026 so far, but that kind of run-up leaves limited room for further upside when margins start compressing.

Don't get me wrong — Sandisk is in the right place at the right time. But if you're looking for the best AI investment opportunities right now, you probably want companies with exposure across multiple parts of the AI supply chain, not just riding a temporary shortage. The real winners tend to be the ones positioned to benefit from AI over the long term, not just the next 12-18 months while undersupply lasts. Worth keeping an eye on, but maybe not the move if you're thinking years ahead.