Samsung Electronics Co. said Monday it aims to use artificial intelligence (AI) to cut the time needed to develop new semiconductor materials by three years. The company announced the goal at a forum hosted by the Korea Industry Association Forum, where participants discussed the use of AI in industrial research and development (R&D). "We aim to shorten the development period for new semiconductor materials from five years to two years using AI and increase the number of promising material candidates identified by more than fivefold," Choi Young-sang, an official at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, the company's R&D center, said at the forum. Choi said semiconductor materials consist of multiple thin-film layers, creating more than 100 million possible material combinations for a seven-layer structure. However, researchers can conduct only about 50 experiments a month. "Under the conventional approach, which relies on researchers' experience and intuition, it can take months or even years to identify candidate materials. Data from failed experiments also has not been fully u