According to BlockBeats, on July 24th, the divorce property division case between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and his ex-wife Roh So-young has become even more sensitive due to the AI chip boom. SK Hynix, leveraging HBM's key position in Nvidia's supply chain, has become one of the most sought-after South Korean assets in the global AI capital expenditure cycle. This case, dubbed the "divorce of the century" by South Korean media, was originally a long-running chaebol marital dispute. However, the surge in stock price and market capitalization has directly increased the market's imagination regarding Chey Tae-won's wealth and SK's controlling stake, transforming this family matter into a chaebol control event attracting attention from the capital markets.

SK Hynix, a core asset of the SK Group controlled by Chey Tae-won, is one of the most important high-bandwidth memory suppliers in Nvidia's AI chip supply chain. With the surge in demand for HBM, SK Hynix's stock price and valuation have soared, pushing Chey Tae-won's personal wealth to approximately $5 billion. The Wall Street Journal reports that his ex-wife, Noh So-young, is demanding half of this wealth.

The core of the dispute lies in whether Chey Tae-won's SK Inc. shares should be included in the couple's marital property, and at what point in time should these shares be valued. The South Korean Supreme Court had previously confirmed the divorce and awarded 2 billion won in damages for emotional distress, but overturned the Seoul High Court's ruling on the division of 1.38 trillion won in assets, remanding the property division portion for retrial. The Seoul High Court will issue a new ruling on July 24.

BlockBeats previously analyzed the Choi Tae-won family in detail in their article "The Heirs of SK Hynix's Trillion-Dollar Empire." This marriage was once dubbed the "Wedding of the Century" in South Korea. Choi Tae-won married Roh So-young in 1988, the daughter of former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo. Their union was seen as a symbol of marriage between South Korean political and business elites. In 2015, Choi Tae-won publicly admitted to an extramarital affair and having a son with another woman, leading to a protracted divorce battle.

Of the three children of Choi Tae-won and Noh So-young, their eldest daughter, Choi Yoon-jung, joined SK Biopharmaceutical and SK Inc.'s growth support department; their second daughter, Choi Min-jung, previously handled international trade and policy affairs at SK Hynix before moving into AI healthcare entrepreneurship; and their eldest son, Choi In-geun, moved from SK E&S to McKinsey. All three are connected to the group's future, yet none have been explicitly identified by the market as a "crown prince" in the traditional sense.

For the market, SK Hynix remains one of the most crucial Asian companies in the AI storage chain; for the SK family, the more important Hynix is, the more difficult it becomes for inheritance and marital disputes to remain solely at the private level. The AI boom has inflated Hynix's valuation, but it has also increased the external costs of all arrangements within the SK family. Going forward, how the court handles the division of assets, how Chey Tae-won maintains control, and how the third generation establishes the legitimacy of the business will all be the focus of market attention.

According to BlockBeats, on July 24, Google released its latest report, "AI and the Economy ATLAS v1.0," stating that there is currently no evidence that artificial intelligence is causing large-scale replacement of white-collar jobs; rather, AI is primarily used to assist and collaborate with humans in completing complex tasks.

Based on approximately 15 million de-identified interaction data points from the Gemini app, Google AI Mode, and Gemini API, covering more than 800 occupations, 4,000 job tasks, 300 family activities, 150 countries, and 140 languages, the report analyzes the actual use of AI in economic activities.

The report shows that AI has covered more than 68% of occupations in the United States, corresponding to about 88% of jobs, but the overall penetration depth is still relatively low. Among the occupations that have used AI, AI is involved in only about 21% of tasks on average, and only about 3% of occupations have achieved more than 75% task coverage.

Google found that current AI applications are primarily focused on collaborative assistance rather than full automation. AI interactions account for nearly 65% of non-routine cognitive tasks, but end-to-end automation attempts are less than 10%. AI is more often used in content drafting, information retrieval, review and optimization, creative brainstorming, and strategy formulation.

The report points out that AI is not only serving white-collar jobs, but is also entering the fields of technical and manual labor. For example, professions such as auto mechanics and industrial mechanics are beginning to use multimodal AI for fault diagnosis, equipment inspection, and real-time learning.

Furthermore, AI usage is strongly correlated with income and education level. Data shows that for every 1% increase in median occupational income in the United States, AI usage intensity increases by more than 2.5%, with high-income workers remaining the most active group in AI adoption.

In non-work settings, over 86% of AI interactions occur outside of work, primarily in areas such as home management, shopping research, education, healthcare, legal services, and government services. Google estimates that if AI helps US users save just 30 minutes of home time per week, its potential untapped productivity value could reach approximately $100 billion.

The report also points out that global AI adoption is highly correlated with national wealth levels; for every 1% increase in per capita GDP, AI usage increases by approximately 0.9%. However, AI adoption rates in some Latin American and Middle Eastern countries have exceeded expectations based on their economic levels.