The South Korean conglomerate Samsung, said in a statement on Wednesday about investing $20 billion on AI, 5G, and Auto components for the next 3 years, also said that it will hire 1,000 AI researchers, from around the world in order to become the next major player of 5G technologies in the world. The investment is only a small part of a larger pool worth $161 billion that would go towards component research and capital expenditure.
The aim of this investment is to become more divergent in the declining sales of smartphones and other electronics. The bulk of investment will go to its chip division which has lately performed remarkably well. Samsung is now the leading manufacturer of electronics, ahead of its rival Intel. A lot of the new investment is set to go into meeting the demand from applications of AI, 5G, and Automotive electronics.
The announcement came after Samsung recorded its slowest quarterly profit growth in over a year. The company cited slow Samsung Galaxy S9 sales as the reason for the slow growth rate. The company has also been hit by a series of scandals, where their de facto leader Lee Jae-Yong was convicted of corruption last year but was released from prison in February. Samsung is also facing competition from Chinese rivals Xiaomi, Huawei.
After Samsung registered a very good growth in biopharmaceuticals, now it plans to invest in drugs used to treat chronic and difficult to cure diseases. It is also putting money and talent into Autonomous driving, Internet of things, and Robots.
Samsung will spend the money over the next 3 years, mainly in Korea, looks to recruit 40,000 employees.