In Suwon, South Korea, where Samsung Electronics has its headquarters, executives are preparing to report an operating profit of 107.4 trillion won, or roughly $80bn, for the three months ending in September. That figure is nearly nine times what the company earned over the same period last year. It is also the fourth quarter in a row in which Samsung has posted record earnings, a run that reflects just how central memory chips have become to the global race to build artificial intelligence.

The surge is not unique to one company. Samsung, SK Hynix in South Korea, and Micron in the United States together dominate the market for memory chips that feed data centres built by firms like Nvidia. As demand has outpaced supply, a global semiconductor shortage has emerged, allowing manufacturers to raise prices on everything from server components to smartphones. Samsung's own stock market valuation passed $1tn earlier this year, a milestone that would have seemed improbable before the AI boom reshaped the industry's economics.

Money is now pouring into chip production on a scale rarely seen outside wartime industrial mobilisation. Google, Amazon and Meta have pledged more than $650bn combined to AI infrastructure this year alone, while South Korea has unveiled an $880bn plan, led by Samsung and SK Hynix, to expand domestic chip manufacturing over the coming years. Japan, China and Taiwan are racing to match that investment, wary of being left behind in a market where capacity, not just innovation, now decides who wins. Samsung's new foldable phones, launched in August, are expected to add a further boost when full third-quarter results are published at the end of October.