On July 31st the company reported that its operating profit in the most recent quarter was up 16-fold, year on year, thanks to growth in its chip business. Demand is rocketing as tech giants such as Microsoft and Alphabet rush to build data centres to support their artificial-intelligence (AI) ambitions. Samsung’s share price rose 4% on the day. Yet a single bumper quarter cannot obscure the company’s deeper challenges. Most worrying is that it has been losing ground to rival chipmakers. Global technology stocks are up by 82% since the start of 2023. Samsung’s value has risen by just half that (see chart 1).