By Sherry Qin


Samsung Electronics has tapped a new chief for its semiconductor arm as it looks to boost its competitiveness in the chip industry amid the artificial-intelligence boom.

The South Korean technology conglomerate on Tuesday appointed Young Hyun Jun as the new head of its semiconductor business.

Jun is the former chief executive at Samsung's battery unit Samsung SDI and former head of Samsung Electronics' memory-chip business. He will replace Kyehyun Kyung, who will succeed Jun as the head of future business, a division tasked with working out future business strategies.

Samsung is the world's largest maker of memory chips and a major player in the contract chip-making, or foundry, business. It is among handful of players capable of manufacturing the industry's most cutting-edge logic chips, alongside Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Intel.

Samsung, racing with rivals to develop advanced high-bandwidth memory chips and other AI chips, is looking to expand its chip-making facilities in Texas after receiving a $6.4 billion U.S. government grant last month.

Its net profit more than quadrupled in the first quarter as its flagship semiconductor business swung to profit on higher memory-chip prices.

Samsung has said it expects demand for HBM chips that power AI systems to remain strong through the second half of 2024.


Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-21-24 0018ET