UFS 5.0: Next-Gen Storage Promises Double Speed for AI-Driven Smartphones

UFS 5.0 storage promises to be twice as fast for AI's sake, hopefully enticing Google Pixel

Just a couple of months after Google Pixel finally adopted faster UFS 4.1 storage in select Pixel 10 devices, the UFS 5.0 standard has been announced with storage that's twice as fast, and the reason for that speed boost will hopefully catch Google's attention a little sooner. UFS 4.0 was announced back in 2022 with a big speed boost to 4.2GB/second, up from UFS 3's roughly 2.1GB/second. But, with the upcoming UFS 5.0 standard, a much bigger jump is in store. JEDEC, the organization in charge of the UFS standard, has announced that UFS 5.0 will see increased performance of up to 10.8GB/second. That's nearly a 160% increase over UFS 4.0. Why the huge leap? JEDEC specifically says that the faster performance will "meet AI demands." With that in mind, hopefully Google is listening. Pixel phones have been stuck on UFS 3.1 since 2021's Pixel 6 series, but the Pixel 10, at least in its higher storage tiers, finally moved up to UFS 4.0. The difference in performance hasn't been tremendous, but it's been an overdue change nonetheless. But with AI being the reason for the massive leap that is UFS 5.0, we can only hope that Google is taking a closer look at the tech for future Pixels, as AI is kind of Google's whole pitch. As for when UFS 5.0 starts hitting production, that's not been mentioned. The list of highlights for the UFS 5.0 standard includes:

This next-gen storage format could soon become a reason to upgrade your smartphone - here's why

This massive speed boost could be especially beneficial for AI Storage speeds aren't something we talk about much in the context of smartphones - and nor are they likely a major factor in purchase decisions for most people. But that might soon change, as in the era of AI, faster storage can be very beneficial - and a very fast new storage standard has just been announced. The Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) has just announced that UFS 5.0 is coming soon (via Phone Arena). This is the next version of Universal Flash Storage, and it's set to provide a massive boost in speed. According to this announcement, it will be capable of data transfer speeds of 10.8GB per second, which is almost double the 5.8GB per second offered by UFS 4.0. That increase could be beneficial any time your phone needs to read or write things on its storage, but it might be particularly useful for AI. In fact, that 10.8GB per second speed has specifically been reached in order to meet the demands of AI, so with UFS 5.0, AI apps and features could perform noticeably faster - and as AI tools become more advanced and demanding, that will be all the more important. As well as higher speeds, UFS 5.0 also promises power-efficient performance, so it shouldn't drain your phone's battery too much, and it will be backwards compatible with UFS 4.x hardware. So, when buying your next phone, you might first want to check whether it includes UFS 5.0 storage or not, as that could be a major differentiator. Sadly, right now it's unclear when the first phones with UFS 5.0 will land, as no smartphone makers have yet announced such a handset. But based on past form, there's a good chance Samsung will be among the first to embrace it - so perhaps we'll see it in the Samsung Galaxy S26 series. Apple, meanwhile, takes the typically Apple approach of not using the UFS standards at all, and instead opting for slower storage, so there's not much hope of the iPhone 18 series adopting it. Google might with the Pixel 11, but on the Pixel 10 series, you get different storage speeds depending on how much storage you opt for, so it's possible that higher capacities will get UFS 5.0 while lower capacities will have earlier versions. Hopefully, though, UFS 5.0 will be widely and rapidly adopted in the smartphone world, because it sounds like a worthwhile upgrade.