Samsung spent $25.55 billion on R&D last year

Samsung is one of the biggest spenders on research and development (R&D) in the technology industry. The South Korean firm spent KRW 37.7 trillion (around $25.55 billion) on R&D in 2025, which is 7.8% higher than what it spent in 2024. This shows that the company is increasing its research spending every year.

A large portion of that R&D spending was used to keep up with booming demand for semiconductor memory chips, including high-capacity DDR memory and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. Companies such as AMD, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia are buying most of the memory chips available in the market to power their AI data centers, hyperscale infrastructure, and server farms.

Samsung also spent KRW 52.7 trillion (around $35.7 billion) on facility investments in 2025. That is $3.39 billion more than what it spent in 2024. The money was used to upgrade its semiconductor manufacturing facilities, including the NRD-K complex, a semiconductor R&D hub located at the Giheung campus in Yongin, South Korea.

The company says it will continue investing more money in the development of future HBM chips this year. It shipped the first batch of HBM4 chips last month and is expected to ship more HBM4 chips to Nvidia going forward.