SanDisk (SNDK) has become an investment play on the artificial intelligence sector, with shares now accessible on the Nasdaq-100 index after previously being listed only on the over-the-counter market. The company manufactures both NAND flash and SSD products, positioning it to benefit from AI data centres' high-speed memory and storage requirements. The industry faces a shortage of available memory associated with new AI chip technology, with insufficient supply of higher-speed memory to meet market demands, leading to increased reliance on solid-state drives for staging and retrieving data. SanDisk looks to be the biggest AI winner based on share price performance to date in 2026, with a $10,000 investment on January 1st 2026 now valued at about $40,000. The momentum from this rally was a major reason SanDisk recently joined the Nasdaq-100 index, indicating investors see AI infrastructure developments as multiple years in length. SanDisk is a prime example of investing in second-layer AI, where investors seek businesses supporting the infrastructure behind the scenes rather than just the apparent leaders in AI computing.