The battle for AI chips was already hot. Today, OpenAI added some Jalapeño.

• The AI company said today that it has begun testing the first in a family of homegrown chips, with plans to start using them to handle customer queries later this year.
• The Jalapeño chips, which are aimed at inference rather than training, were developed with some help from Broadcom.

Why it matters: OpenAI is joining other leading AI companies in designing its own silicon as it races to secure more computing capacity, lower costs and reduce its dependence on Nvidia.

Zoom in: OpenAI did the core design, while Broadcom brought specific knowledge in connectivity and other areas.

• Broadcom said to expect the first chips to be in commercial use at Microsoft and other partners by the end of the year, though OpenAI says the real volume will come next year.
• OpenAI has said it aims to have the custom chips powering 10 gigawatts' worth of compute by 2029.

The big picture: OpenAI has relied almost exclusively on Nvidia chips for both training and inference, though it recently began adding chips from Cerebras for inference.

• Nvidia remains a key partner, especially for training new models, OpenAI says.
• Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others already have their own AI chips that they use alongside Nvidia's processors.

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Memory chip giant Micron Technology appears to have eased some of the AI jitters as it beat quarterly earnings and sales expectations, sending the stock up some 11% in after-hours trading today, Axios' Matt Phillips writes.

Why it matters: With a market cap of more than $1.1 trillion, Micron is the largest of the memory and data storage stocks that have exploded over the last year as part of the AI buildout trade.

• Its stock is up more than 700% over the last 12 months.

Yes, but: Earlier today, its shares slipped 0.4% in something of a hangover from the global outbreak of AI jitters that sent the shares down 13% yesterday.

Zoom in: Micron's sales guidance for the current quarter of $49 billion–$51 billion outclassed consensus Wall Street expectations of $45.58 billion.

The bottom line: Those numbers showed zero sign of an AI-related slowdown in demand for memory or storage, at least at first glance.

📈 South Korea's SK Hynix, the world's second-largest ​memory-chip maker, plans to raise more than $29 billion through a listing of U.S. ADRs on the Nasdaq. (Reuters)

📺 Best Buy announced it's the exclusive national retailer for RGB LED TVs, putting the electronics chain at the center of what manufacturers say is the biggest change in TV technology in more than a decade. (Axios)

Wendy's shares surged today in an apparent meme-stock rally, Axios' Pete Gannon writes.

• The stock topped Stocktwits' trending list today, indicating that it was the most-discussed ticker among users of the retail-investor social network.
• The reason, Bloomberg reported, appears to be a post on Reddit's WallStreetBets that implored members to "save Wendy's before it's too late." It was later removed by moderators.

Zoom out: The nostalgic fast-food chain known for its "Where's the beef?" commercials in the '80s, checks a lot of meme-stock boxes.

• For years, the chain has been part of inside jokes on popular retail-trader forums, MarketWatch notes.
• Its shares are down 70% over the past three years.
• And roughly 1 in 5 Wendy's shares available for public trading are currently being sold short, according to FactSet data.

What we're watching: ORTEX co-founder Peter Hillerberg tells Reuters that Wendy's was primed for a "short squeeze," but that the stock would need to be pushed even higher to force shorts to cover.