Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday its first-quarter net profit surged more than fivefold from a year earlier, driven by robust demand for high-end memory chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Net profit for the three months ended March jumped to 47.22 trillion won (US$31.8 billion) from 8.22 trillion won a year earlier, the company said in a press release. Operating profit jumped more than eightfold to 57.23 trillion won from 6.68 trillion won over the same period, while