South Korea's chip industry is concerned that a prolonged Iranian crisis will disrupt supplies of key materials from the Middle East and increase chip prices as a result of a spike in energy costs, a ruling party lawmaker said on Thursday. The chip industry also said the crisis could deal a setback to plans by big tech firms to build AI data centres in the Middle East for the longer term, thus weighing on strong chip demand, Kim Young-bae said. Kim made the comment after meeting with executives from companies such as Samsung Electronics, the world's top memory chipmaker, and business and trade groups.