South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics posted record quarterly profits Thursday, riding massive market demand for the memory chips that power artificial intelligence.

A global frenzy to build AI data centres and develop the fast-evolving technology has sent orders for advanced memory microchips soaring.

That is also pushing up prices for less flashy chips used in consumer electronics, threatening higher prices for phones, laptops and other devices worldwide.

In the quarter to December 2025, Samsung said it saw “its highest-ever quarterly consolidated revenue at KRW 93.8 trillion (US$65.5 billion)”, a quarter-on-quarter increase of nine percent.

“Operating profit was also an all-time high, at KRW 20.1 trillion,” the company said.

The dazzling earnings came a day after a key competitor, South Korean chip giant SK hynix, said operating profit had doubled last year to a record high, also buoyed by the AI boom.

The South Korean government has pledged to become one of the top three AI powers, behind the United States and China, with Samsung and SK hynix among the leading producers of high-performance memory.

Samsung said Thursday it expects “AI and server demand to continue increasing, leading to more opportunities for structural growth”.

Annual revenue stood at 333.6 trillion won, while operating profit came in at 43.6 trillion won. Sales for the division that oversees its semiconductor business rose 33 percent quarter-on-quarter.

The company pointed to a $33.2 billion investment in chip production facilities, pledging to continue spending in “transitioning to advanced manufacturing processes and upgrading existing production lines to meet rising demand”.

Major electronics manufacturers and industry analysts have warned that chipmakers focusing on AI sales will cause higher retail prices for consumer products across the board.

This week US chip firm Micron said it was building a $24 billion plant in Singapore in response to AI-driven demand that has caused a global shortage of memory components.

SK hynix announced Wednesday that its operating profit had doubled last year to a record 47.2 trillion won.

The company’s shares have surged some 220 percent over the past six months, while Samsung Electronics has risen about 130 percent, part of a huge global tech rally fuelled by optimism over AI.

Both companies are on the cusp of producing next-generation high-bandwidth “HBM4” chips for AI data centres, with Samsung reportedly due to start making them in February.

American chip giant Nvidia, now the world’s most valuable company, is expected to be one of Samsung’s customers for HBM4 chips.

But Nvidia has reportedly allocated around 70 percent of its HBM4 demand to SK hynix for 2026, up from the market’s previous estimate of 50 percent.

“Samsung is clearly back and we are expecting them to show a significant turnaround with HBM4 for Nvidia’s new products – helping them move past last year’s quality issues,” Hwang Min-seong, research director at market analysis firm Counterpoint, told AFP.

But SK still “maintains a market lead in both quality and supply” of a number of key components, including Dynamic Random Access Memory chips used in AI servers, he said.

SK also this week said it will set up an “AI solutions firm” in the United States, committing $10 billion and weighing investments in US companies.

Published – January 29, 2026 09:59 am IST

Meta on Wednesday reported quarterly earnings that topped market expectations, as revenue grew along with investments in artificial intelligence.

The parent of Facebook and Instagram said it made a profit of $22.8 billion on revenue of nearly $60 billion in the recently ended quarter, adding it could take in as much as $56.5 billion in the current quarter.

“We had strong business performance in 2025,” Meta co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in an earnings release.

Meta shares rose more than 8 percent in after-market trades.

Some 3.58 billion people used apps owned by Meta daily in the quarter, which are being enhanced with the help of AI, according to the social networking giant.

Meanwhile costs tallied $35.15 billion, an increase of 40 percent from the same period a year earlier, the earnings reported noted.

“Zuckerberg is clearly going all?in on AI, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see the share reaction cool as investors absorb those aggressive investment plans,” said Hargreaves Lansdown senior equity analyst Matt Britzman.

“Even so, Meta is assembling one of the largest AI compute clusters outside the cloud giants, all aimed at strengthening its family of apps.”

Capital expenses, including infrastructure such as data centers to power AI, were $22.14 billion in the quarter, according to the company.

Meta expects to spend more than $100 billion this fiscal year, driven by increased investment in Meta Superintelligence Labs and its core business.

“I’m looking forward to advancing personal superintelligence for people around the world in 2026,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg has predicted that AI-infused smart glasses will be the “next major computing platform,” eventually replacing the smartphone.

But Reality Labs, Meta’s virtual and augmented reality unit, has consistently posted big losses.

Meta is locked in a bitter rivalry with other tech behemoths racing to invest heavily in AI, aiming to ensure the technology benefits society and generates profits in the not-so-distant future.

Most analysts believe Meta will make the investment pay off by improving advertising efficiency and creating new opportunities, such as with its smart glasses through a partnership with Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica.

The earnings report came as a landmark trial accusing Meta of being among tech firms addicting young people to social media gets underway in Los Angeles.

“Paired with momentum behind classroom cell phone bans and a broader push to regulate social media usage among kids and teens, it’s clear that Meta and its rivals have hit a watershed moment that could end up having massive implications for their businesses,” said Emarketer senior analyst Minda Smiley.

Meta is monitoring legal and regulatory headwinds in Europe and the United States that could take a toll on its business, chief financial officer Susan Li said on an earnings call.

“For example, we continue to see scrutiny on youth related issues and have a number of trials scheduled for this year in the US, which may ultimately result in a material loss,” Li warned.

The case being heard in California state court is being called a “bellwether” proceeding because its outcome could set the tone for a tidal wave of similar litigation across the United States.

Snap and TikTok-parent ByteDance have negotiated settlements to avoid the trial, leaving Meta and Alphabet’s YouTube as the remaining defendants.

Zuckerberg is slated to be called as a witness during the trial.

The case focuses on allegations that a 19-year-old woman identified by the initials K.G.M. suffered severe mental harm because she was addicted to social media.

Social media firms are accused in hundreds of lawsuits of addicting young users to content that has led to depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalization and even suicide.

Internet titans have argued that they are shielded by Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which frees them of responsibility for what social media users post.

However, this case argues those firms are culpable for business models designed to hold people’s attention and to promote content that winds up harming their mental health.

Meta and YouTube have rejected the allegations.

Published – January 29, 2026 09:35 am IST

US online retail and cloud computing giant Amazon said Wednesday it will cut 16,000 jobs worldwide as the company tries to streamline amid its major push into AI.

The job cuts, which follow already flagged plans to trim its workforce by 14,000 posts, were aimed at “reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy,” senior vice president Beth Galetti said in a statement.

Media reports from October had said the roughly 30,000 job cuts planned in total would comprise nearly 10 percent of the 350,000 office jobs at Amazon. They would not affect the distribution and warehouse workers that make up the bulk of the company’s 1.5 million employees.

Amazon did not give any breakdown of the latest cuts or specify which divisions would be affected, saying only that “every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate.”

The company will release its full-year 2025 results on February 5. In its last quarterly earnings statement in October, the company said it spent $1.8 billion on severance costs tied to planned job cuts.

Amazon said new positions will be offered to employees where possible.

The layoffs are in line with a trend in big tech to trim white-collar management jobs. Microsoft in July said it had slashed a little less than four percent of its global workforce, about 15,000 jobs.

CEO Andy Jassy said in October, after the first round of layoffs, that the cuts were not related to budget or AI investments.

“Really, it’s culture,” he said, decrying too many layers of management.

Facebook owner Meta has also cut jobs over the past year, in a move intended to remove organizational bloat following aggressive hiring during the pandemic.

Dutch tech giant ASML on Wednesday said it would cut hundreds of management jobs to improve internal organization, with HP and Oracle also announcing recent layoffs.

Like other tech giants, Amazon is making massive investments to grab a slice of the AI revolution pie.

It is particularly banking on the performance of its subsidiary Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s leading cloud provider, which is engaged in a race against its fast-growing rivals, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Spending on developing new AI-based chips and services is growing exponentially. In December, Amazon announced it would invest more than $35 billion in India.

Published – January 29, 2026 08:45 am IST