South Korea’s largest company reported an operating profit of 12.1 trillion won (US$8.5 billion) in the September quarter, compared with analysts’ projection for 9.70 trillion won, according to a preliminary earnings report released on Tuesday.

Revenue climbed to 86 trillion won. The company will provide a full financial statement with net income and divisional breakdowns later this month.

The results may bolster confidence among investors betting on the durability of demand for AI servers and memory chips. Samsung’s shares have surged more than 60% since early June, buoyed by signs of recovery in its pivotal semiconductor division, which typically accounts for 50% to 70% of the company’s annual profits.

Samsung is seeking to position itself to ride the anticipated AI boom in coming years. It’s made progress with its latest high-bandwidth memory chips, securing an order from Advanced Micro Devices Inc while awaiting final approval on HBM3E chips from Nvidia Corp.

Investors are betting that Samsung can catch up with smaller rival SK Hynix Inc in the supply of HBM to Nvidia and others for AI applications.

This month, both Korean industry linchpins struck agreements to supply chips to OpenAI’s Stargate project. Their projection for demand represented more than twice the current global capacity of HBM, underscoring Stargate’s enormity and quickening global AI development.

That, together with rising memory chip prices, has prompted dozens of analysts to lift their price targets for Samsung recently.

Samsung’s advances come after years of setbacks, including development missteps that allowed SK Hynix to take a huge lead in the lucrative AI arena.

Samsung said during its most recent earnings call in July that it expects “meaningful expansion” in high-end memory products for servers in the second half of the year.