Samsung invests £150 billion to become global chipmaking leader

Samsung has outlined plans to invest 240 trillion won (roughly £150 billion) in semiconductors, biopharmaceuticals and next-generation networking among other key strategic areas over the next three years.

The majority of this funding, approximately 180 trillion won (approximately £112 billion), will be directed on expanding facilities and staffing in South Korea, although Samsung didn’t reveal a precise investment plan, according to the Korea Herald.

This investment package will also involve hiring 40,000 people during the execution of the plan. This is on top of 30,000 hires that were already planned.

The overall package also involves spending that Samsung previously outlined, namely a £110 billion investment up to 2030 in order to expand its chipmaking capabilities. This new, aggressive plan, however, involves spending much greater sums of cash within a much shorter timeframe.

The aim is to position Samsung as a global leader in strategically important areas, such as the tumultuous semiconductor industry. The firm plans to invest in advanced processes to allow it to maintain a leadership position in memory and logic chips.

For system-on-chip, the firm raised the importance of timely development of advanced processes, with Samsung aiming to start producing 3nm chips on a massive scale soon.

Beyond chipmaking and biopharmaceuticals, the firm will also continue its research into technologies such as 6G, by investing in telecoms infrastructure and software.

Samsung’s aggressive levels of investment are particularly important because the semiconductor industry is one of the biggest in South Korea, and computer chips are one of its largest exports.

This round of investment comes after Intel announced earlier this year that it plans to reinvigorate its business with a $20 billion (roughly £15 billion) restructuring. The project, dubbed IDM 2.0, comes after Nvidia superseded Intel to become the most valuable chipmaker, while the firm also faced delays to key products.

While Samsung’s package appears to dwarf Intel’s, the South Korean firm’s plan also involves spending on emerging technologies such as AI and robotics, as well as display applications, high-density and solid-state batteries.