¥40 billion (about $260 million) in Yokohama: Samsung builds its AI chip-packaging lab with Japan's materials masters

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong walked the floor of the company's Advanced Package Lab in Yokohama, Japan, on Sunday — his first inspection since the lab formally opened on 8 September. Packaging, the craft of joining powerful chips together so they work as one, has become decisive for AI hardware: it governs speed, power use and heat. Samsung set up the lab in 2023 and is investing ¥40 billion (about $260 million) over five years from 2024 to build it into a global research hub, working directly with Japan's dense cluster of materials and equipment specialists, and in tandem with its packaging teams in South Korea. The plan is cooperation as strategy: Korean design and manufacturing, Japanese materials mastery, one package.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: infrastructure build