Employees at Samsung Electronics’ memory chip division are to receive bonuses averaging about £310,000 each through a landmark profit-sharing agreement, as the AI boom drives up chipmakers’ profits.

Fears of a strike at Samsung were averted on Wednesday after two unions for the world’s largest memory chipmaker said 74% of the 62,616 workers who cast their votes had backed the deal.

The agreement, mediated by South Korea’s government, means Samsung will set aside 10.5% of operating profits at its semiconductor division to pay special bonuses to its chip workers. It should end a bitter five-month dispute.

The company accounts for about a quarter of South Korea’s exports and a threatened 18-day strike would have damaged the country’s economy and disrupted global chip supplies.

But the deal could create tensions within Samsung, as employees in other divisions such as its consumer electronics arm will receive much smaller bonuses.

Reuters reported last week that a memory chip worker with a ​base salary ⁠of 80m won ($53,400 or £39,700), for example, was expected to receive a bonus of about 626m won ($416,000 or £310,000) this year, mostly paid in stock, according to a union source.

Bonus levels will vary between staff. Bloomberg calculated that Samsung’s chip workers stood to get 513m won ($340,000 or £250,000) on average. Samsung employs about 78,000 people in its semiconductor division, which includes memory chips, contract chipmaking and designing semiconductors for clients.

The agreement may not be the end of the matter. A union representing consumer electronics workers has already asked a court to grant a request to block the vote, raising the prospect of a new ballot. Meanwhile, an investor group has threatened to sue on the basis that the deal should have been put to a shareholder meeting for approval.

Business groups are concerned that other unions, which are making similar demands, could be emboldened by the Samsung deal.

The strike threat came as business is booming for Samsung and other chipmakers. Demand for memory chips from AI datacentres has led to a chip shortage, prompting vendors to lift their prices sharply, boosting their profits.

The boom has driven the value of the memory chip firms SK Hynix and Micron over the $1tn mark for the first time. Shares in South Korea’s SK Hynix surged by more than 9% on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Micron’s share price rocketed by 19% after analysts at the investment bank UBS tripled their price target on its stock.

Micron helped to lift the tech-focused Nasdaq index to a new record high on Tuesday evening, while SK Hynix pushed South Korea’s Kospi stock index to a fresh peak on Wednesday. The stock index provider MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan also hit a record high.

Anna Macdonald, an investment strategy director at Hargreaves Lansdown, said these moves reflected “a broader shift in the AI trade”. “Investors are looking beyond graphics processors to memory chips, which are essential for storing and moving the vast amounts of data AI systems rely on,” she said.