Evening AI tech roundup: chips, lawsuits, and model races

Apple filed a lawsuit Friday against OpenAI over allegations of trade secret theft and breach of contract.

The iPhone maker alleges that this misconduct, which it says reveals a pattern of theft from OpenAI employees who previously worked at Apple, was directed by OpenAI’s senior leadership, including Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan .

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses Tan of using Apple’s confidential project code names during OpenAI’s recruiting process, asking job candidates to bring in Apple hardware components to their interviews, coaching departing Apple employees on how to evade the company’s security procedures, and asking for details about the company’s unannounced products.

Before joining OpenAI, Tan had spent 24 years at Apple, most recently as VP of product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch.

The accusations come at a time when OpenAI is rumored to be developing its first hardware product , which would likely compete with the iPhone. In April, industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggested this device could be a smartphone that would rely on AI agents instead of apps. If true, it would be one of the largest threats to Apple’s core hardware business to date.

The AI chip boom just produced its biggest Wall Street moment yet. SK Hynix, a South Korean memory chip giant, said Friday it has raised $26.5 billion (KRW 40 trillion) in its U.S. market debut.

SK Hynix sold 177.9 million American depositary shares (ADRs) at $149 each, structured so U.S. investors can buy in at roughly a tenth of what a full share costs in Seoul. This deal, the largest-ever U.S. debut by a non-American company, topped Alibaba’s $25 billion IPO in 2014.

The company begins trading on the Nasdaq today, Friday, July 10, under the temporary ticker SKHYV. Regular trading opens Monday, July 13, when the ticker officially becomes SKHY. So far, U.S. investors are lapping it up. The stock opened at 14% over its IPO price , and the price was still rising in early trading on Friday.

This even as it priced its U.S. shares at a 2.7% premium to its own three-day average back home in Seoul, according to its Korea Stock Exchange filing . Yet, demand for the offering was reportedly more than seven times the available shares, per media reports.

That’s especially amazing considering Korean companies have long traded at a discount to their global peers. That valuation gap is called the Korea Discount. Investors often cite factors such as complex corporate governance structures, low shareholder returns, regulatory uncertainty, and geopolitical risks related to North Korea to justify why companies from that country don’t command higher share prices.