TNB Tech Minute: OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle Pledge $500B in U.S. AI Investment
WSJ Tech News Briefing
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Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Tuesday, January 21st. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal.
Three major tech companies are pledging up to $500 billion towards building artificial intelligence infrastructure in the U.S. OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and other partners will start a joint venture called Stargate to build the infrastructure. The companies are committing $100 billion to the venture and planning to invest up to $500 billion over the next four years. Its first project will be in Texas.
The $100 billion sum includes some previously announced projects by the tech companies involved. That's according to people familiar with the matter. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, and Oracle Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison went to the White House to announce the deal today.
Netflix is raising prices again. In the U.S., the company's ad-supported tier will go up a dollar and cost $7.99 a month. The cost of the premium tier will go up by $2 to $24.99 a month. The company reported revenue of $10.25 billion for the latest quarter. Net profit rose to $1.87 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $938 million a year earlier. The
The streaming giant said it brought nearly 19 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter, a 44% jump from a year earlier. It ended the quarter with 301.6 million subscribers. The company has said this is the last time it'll disclose quarterly subscriber numbers. Shares jumped in after-hours trading. And the Securities and Exchange Commission has named Republican Commissioner Hester Pierce as the head of a new cryptocurrency task force.
Pierce, who's been dubbed Crypto Mom by cryptocurrency advocates because of her friendly stance towards the industry, will walk back the approach of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Meanwhile, Coinbase has listed President Trump's meme coin becoming the latest major cryptocurrency platform to enable its trading. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Wednesday's Tech News Briefing podcast.