Julie Chang

People familiar with the matter say Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is leading the negotiations with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

They say the exact shape of a deal, if one is reached, could still change.

Investing up to $50 billion could make Amazon the biggest contributor to the ChatGP team maker's ongoing fundraising round.

Amazon has also put money into OpenAI's competitor, Anthropic.

The e-commerce giant has been investing heavily in AI infrastructure while cutting costs internally.

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI.

U.S.

regulators are investigating Waymo after one of its robo-taxis hit a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica, California.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the incident took place on January 23, and the child sustained minor injuries.

In a blog post yesterday, Waymo said it would cooperate with NHTSA's investigation.

The company said the autonomous driving tech detected the child and slowed the vehicle's speed from 17 mph to less than 6 mph.

Waymo said its peer-reviewed model showed that a fully attentive human driver in the same situation would have made contact at approximately 14 miles per hour.

NHTSA said it would look into how the autonomous driving system is intended to work within school zones.

And Apple posted blowout iPhone sales and record profits in the December quarter, beating Wall Street expectations.

iPhone sales of over $85 billion were up 23% from the prior year period.

Customers excited by the new iPhone 17 lineup upgraded their smartphones faster than usual.

Sales were particularly strong in China, where Apple's results have been uneven in recent years.

But one sore spot in the smartphone lineup was the iPhone Air, which hasn't sold well.

For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Friday's Tech News Briefing podcast.

Here's your morning TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, January 29th.