Closed brand legend Western Digital switches to WD name 🍋

Western Digital, one of the hard disk brands that many are familiar with, officially announced the closing of the use of the full name, with the corporate rebranding to the short name Concise that WD reflects the new era of companies focusing on data infrastructure for the AI-driven economy.

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The announcement came at Innovation Day 2026, where the company stated that it will use the WD name to communicate all brands from now on. Despite the Western Digital name remaining in legal and financial documents, the change comes with a new logo designed to convey data centers, movement, and massive levels of data expansion, and to apply to business directions where 90% of core revenue will come from AI and the cloud.

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In addition to the rebranding, WD also opened a new-age hard disk technology roadmap, shuffling its hallmark at 40TB UltraSMR ePMR, considered the world's highest-capacity HDD now and undergoing testing with hyperscale customers, with plans to expand HAMR technology to 100TB + levels by 2029 under a parallel development approach between ePMR and HAMR to ensure smooth customer transition.

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The company also launched High Bandwidth Drive and Dual Pivot technologies that maximize bandwidth and IO performance by several times, support AI workloads at HDD cost, reduce flash storage dependence, and develop an energy efficient version of HDD that reduces power consumption by around 20%, reduces total cost of ownership and increases sustainability in storage of large data.

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The closing of the Western Digital name legend is therefore not just a change of logo, but an announcement of WD's new position as the centerpiece of the data infrastructure for the AI era in its entirety.

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Source: businesswire

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