Samsung has announced a record-breaking $19 billion investment in R&D in the first half of 2026, reinforcing its aggressive push towards advanced memory and AI technologies amid fierce industry competition.
Samsung has set a fresh benchmark for research spending, underscoring how aggressively it is backing the technologies that will drive its next phase of growth. According to a recent filing in South Korea, the company spent 27.3tn won, or roughly $19bn, on research and development in the first half of 2026 alone. That was up 51.1% on the same period a year earlier and suggests the full-year figure could rise further.
The scale of the outlay matters because Samsung is trying to defend its position across the semiconductor chain at a time when demand is shifting towards advanced memory and AI-related components. SamMobile reported earlier this year that Samsung spent about $25.55bn on R&D in 2025, with much of that money directed towards high-bandwidth memory and high-capacity DDR5 chips. South Korea’s JoongAng Daily later reported that the company described that as a record annual figure, part of a wider push to stay ahead in next-generation chip markets.
Samsung is also spending heavily on the industrial side of its business. The Korean filing shows that, alongside R&D, it has invested more than $19bn in equipment and manufacturing infrastructure. That separation is significant: research spending covers design and development, while capital expenditure funds factories, production lines and other physical assets needed to turn that work into volume output.
The company’s broader 2026 investment plans point in the same direction. SamMobile reported that Samsung intends to spend almost $74bn this year on factories, research and development, while Reuters has noted the wider industry race to add capacity for AI semiconductors. Samsung has also used recent product events to highlight its AI ambitions, unveiling HBM4E memory at NVIDIA GTC 2026 and presenting its AI-led device strategy at CES 2026. The message is clear: Samsung is pairing record research spending with major manufacturing investment in an effort to capture demand that it expects to grow sharply in the years ahead.
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