Lam Research said it plans to invest more than $3 billion over the next five years to expand its global research and development lab network, aiming to increase experiment capacity by more than 50% and accelerate product development. The U.S. chip equipment maker said the expansion will begin this year and is intended to help it keep pace with customers' needs as AI-focused spending by major technology companies drives demand for advanced chips and the tools used to manufacture them. Lam said its lab network across the U.S., Asia and Europe supports more than 1 million experiments annually, and that the integrated setup has shortened process development by up to 2.5 times in recent customer engagements. The company supplies deposition, etch and cleaning equipment used to build the microscopic layers and patterns inside semiconductor chips.