Samsung Electronics shares rose 3.45% to 270,000 won by 9:05 a.m. on the 21st, as expectations for stronger memory semiconductor demand from expanded AI infrastructure investment lifted earnings forecasts. The rally followed gains in semiconductor stocks on Wall Street over the weekend despite higher Treasury yields. Analysts say supply constraints are shifting from logic chips toward memory, with GPUs, memory, networking, storage and power supply all emerging as critical AI infrastructure bottlenecks. Expanding HBM (high-bandwidth memory for AI workloads) production could also reduce capacity for commodity DRAM (main memory used in computers), tightening supply as AI inference expands. KB Securities estimates Samsung Electronics' second-half operating profit at approximately 221 trillion won, up 587% from a year earlier, with quarterly projections of 104 trillion won in Q3 and 117.3 trillion won in Q4. The Export-Import Bank of Korea's Overseas Economic Research Institute projects a global semiconductor market above $1.6 trillion this year, while the memory market is forecast at approximately $886.5 billion, led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Samsung's free cash flow, or FCF (cash remaining after capital spending), is projected at 245.2 trillion won this year and 357.4 trillion won next year. Analysts see potential for expanded shareholder returns under the 2027-2029 policy review, while Nomura Securities expects strong memory conditions and proactive distributions to support a broad share-price re-rating.