SK Hynix just put a real number on the table — a hundred and forty-nine bucks a share — and after this week, I could kiss it. If you're just joining: Greater China's AI listings are already past the debut-day fireworks. Zhipu AI and MiniMax both surged after going public in Hong Kong. Now the test is supply: lock-up expirations, secondary placements. How much capital will public buyers actually absorb after that first run-up? This is AI IPO Watch. Today — one deal that's priced, one surge cashing itself out, and a nine-billion-dollar business nobody's allowed to see. SK Hynix first. The Globe and Mail, with Hyunjoo Jin, Pritam Biswas and Kane Wu:
South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix intends to price its American Depository Receipts at US$149 on Thursday to raise about US$26.5-billion, a person familiar with the matter said. The share sale decision comes as the company leverages its position as the leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory chips, a critical component for the advanced processors powering global artificial intelligence systems.
Here's the thing about SK Hynix — one-forty-nine a share, twenty-six and a half billion, priced Thursday, trades Friday as SKHY on Nasdaq. Every one of those is a fact I can hold in my hand. After a week of people arguing about numbers a source whispered to somebody, this is what an actual priced deal looks like. There's a process. There's a book. There's a ticker. And the book was oversubscribed more than seven times — that's the line I keep re-reading. Seven-x demand on a twenty-six billion dollar raise says investors have real macro appetite for the AI supply chain, not just a rocket-company halo. But seven times covered tells me the ratio, not the roster. I want to know who's in that book — if it's sovereign wealth and long-only, that demand sticks. If it's fast money, the raise just becomes the next unlock clock. And notice — it's HBM, high-bandwidth memory, the actual chip in the actual processors. We're talking about a component with a customer and a factory the twenty-six billion is going to build, not some slide about total addressable AI. Here's Nora Kessler at Tesorb:
SpaceX publicly unveiled Starshield in December 2022, but the classified work started at least two years earlier, when the company began designing customized satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. By mid-2026, Starshield has 245 satellites in orbit, more than $9 billion in identified contract value, and a revenue run rate that grew 80% year over year. It is SpaceX’s fastest-growing business segment. It is also the one the company can tell you the least about.
Okay, here's the number that cuts through the Goldman-versus-Morgan-Stanley fight from earlier this week. Starshield. Nine billion in identified contract value, run rate up 80% year over year, fastest-growing thing SpaceX owns. And the S-1 gives you one line: about 1.8 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue. That's it. And the margins? "Partially redacted or aggregated to protect national-security customer pricing." The unredacted S-1 is physically sitting in a vault at SEC headquarters, readable by about twelve people with clearances. So when an analyst prints a target off Starshield growth, ask them which of the twelve they had lunch with. Because it wasn't in any version of the document you or I can open. And that's the part you don't have to take a view on. The bull and the bear were arguing over a segment neither of them can actually see. The most important revenue line in the company is classified. Web Pulse writes:
Zhipu AI, the Tsinghua University spinoff behind the GLM family of large language models, is looking to raise roughly $4 billion through a secondary share sale in Hong Kong. The move comes after the company’s stock surged nearly 1,500% since its January debut, turning what was already a buzzy IPO into one of the most dramatic post-listing runs in recent memory.
Here's the number that matters: Zhipu raised about 560 million in January. Six months later they're back for four billion. That's more than seven times the IPO, and the lock-up expired July 8th. And the timing isn't a coincidence — they're routing the unlock into a structured placement instead of letting Alibaba and Tencent just dump into the tape. The Greater China rebound we tracked through lock-up risk now has its capital raise attached. After a 1,500% run since January, Zhipu has a window, and the insiders are climbing through it. What gets me is who buys the secondary. The backers selling into a fifteen-hundred-percent move are sophisticated. The person on the other side, buying the placement? The S-1 never told them this was coming six months out. If AI IPO Watch helps you track the market a little smarter, please subscribe and leave a quick review wherever you’re listening. It really helps other people find the show.
What we’re watching next: SK Hynix is scheduled to start trading Friday on Nasdaq under the ticker SKHY.
You’ll find links to every story from today’s briefing in the show notes, so if one caught your ear, you can dig in there. That’s AI IPO Watch for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.