Samsung announced today that it’s going to invest $1.5B into IoT research and ventures over the next four years. Half of the money will go toward internal efforts in Silicon Valley, but the other $750 million is being earmarked for acquisitions and startups.
The Wall Street Journal points out that the investment — a small part of Samsung’s annual R&D budget of $14.1B — is designed to compete with Intel and Qualcomm, both of which have put significant money into the wearables and IoT markets. Samsung is unique among those competitors, however, in that it has muscle in research, manufacturing, and end-user product development.