Broadcom surged to a $1 trillion market valuation for the first time after predicting a boom in demand for its artificial intelligence chips.

Sales of AI products will gain 65% in the fiscal first quarter, far faster than its overall semiconductor growth of about 10%, the company said during a post-earnings conference call. The chipmaker also predicted that the addressable market for AI components that it designs for data center operators would reach as high as $90 billion by fiscal 2027.

Like Nvidia Corp., Broadcom is positioning itself to be a major beneficiary of the AI spending frenzy. And Chief Executive Officer Hock Tan said his company had won two major new hyperscaler customers the biggest operators of data centers.

The stock rose 24% to $224.80 in New York on Friday, its biggest one-day rally since August 2009 the month when precursor company Avago Technologies Ltd. held its initial public offering. That business merged with Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. in 2016 to form the current company.

McKinsey to pay $650M in opioid probe

McKinsey & Company consulting firm has agreed to pay $650 million to settle a federal investigation into its work to help opioids manufacturer Purdue Pharma boost the sales of the highly addictive drug OxyContin, according to court papers filed in Virginia on Friday.

As part of the deal with the U.S. Justice Department, McKinsey will avoid prosecution on criminal charges if it pays the sum and follows certain conditions for five years, including ceasing any work on the sale, marketing or promotion of controlled substances.

A former McKinsey senior partner, Martin Elling, has also agreed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice for deleting documents from his laptop after he became aware of investigations into Purdue Pharma. A lawyer for Elling declined to comment Friday.

McKinsey said in a statement on Friday that it’s “deeply sorry” for its work for Purdue Pharma.

OpenAI whistleblower found dead

A former OpenAI researcher known for whistleblowing the blockbuster artificial intelligence company facing a swell of lawsuits over its business model has died, authorities confirmed this week.

Suchir Balaji, 26, was found dead inside his San Francisco apartment on Nov. 26, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said. Police were called to the Lower Haight residence around 1 p.m. that day, after receiving a call asking officers to check on his well-being, a police spokesperson said.

The medical examiner’s office determined the manner of death to be suicide and police officials this week said there is “currently, no evidence of foul play.”

Information he held was expected to play a key part in lawsuits against the San Francisco-based company.

Balaji’s death comes three months after he publicly accused OpenAI of violating U.S. copyright law while developing ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence program that has become a moneymaking sensation used by hundreds of millions of people across the world.

Its public release in late 2022 spurred a torrent of lawsuits against OpenAI from authors, computer programmers and journalists, who say the company illegally stole their copyrighted material to train its program and elevate its value past $150 billion.

The Mercury News and seven sister news outlets including the Southern California News Group are among several newspapers suing OpenAI.

Compiled from Bloomberg, Associated Press and (San Jose) Mercury News reports