Samsung plans to set up an AI research center

Samsung Electronics is planning on opening a new artificial intelligence research center in the near future, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing official communication from the company. The move is described as Samsung’s attempt of responding to certain “market changes,” with the original equipment manufacturer hoping that the new AI center will benefit all of its major businesses and not just those aimed at delivering consumer-grade products and services. The location of the planned facility wasn’t provided by the tech giant and while the company’s management may yet to decide on it, its home country of South Korea is one of the likely candidates to host the newly announced lab.

Samsung’s consumer electronics and mobile units will both be directly contributing to the center, though no specific details of their roles have yet been provided by the Seoul-based firm. The announcement is in line with the tech giant’s recent endeavors in the AI space that saw it invest significant resources to machine learning and general AI startups in all parts of the world, with the company now having such stakes in numerous countries ranging from South Korea and China to the U.K. and U.S. While Samsung didn’t elaborate on the new circumstances to which it’s responding with its intensifying focus on AI, the chaebol isn’t the first major technology juggernaut that pledged support to the AI segment going forward over the course of this year; the likes of Microsoft, Facebook, and Alibaba have all been making similar moves in recent times, with Google even publicly proclaiming itself as a striving “AI-first company” this spring.

AI is expected to play a major role in a wide variety of technologies in the coming years, with consumer electronics and smartphones in particular being set to strongly benefit from advancements in this field, so long as people end up accepting AI-driven user experiences that companies like Google and Huawei are now pushing for. Earlier this week, Samsung mentioned “AI UX,” a possible name of an intelligent user interface that may be supported by the upcoming Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus Android flagships, both of which are believed to be launching in early 2018.