Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
AI is transforming industries, but the data centers powering it require more energy and water than ever. At the break, join Christoph Beck, Chairman and CEO of Ecolab, for insights on using water effectively while safeguarding this critical resource for future generations.
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Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, January 29th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. We exclusively report that Amazon is in talks to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI. 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.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of Amazon's potential $50 billion investment in OpenAI?
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.
How are data center operators working to improve sustainability and water savings at every stage of the data center lifecycle? Here's Ecolab's Christoph Beck with some thoughts.
The Mach 7 or the Mach 4, the ones that are really so focused on high tech, are the most forward-looking. They have the means, they have the mindset, they have the passion for innovation, and they're really open to try new things as well because everything is new with AI and with that technology as well.
I think even if we're not where we wanted to be with that industry right now, we will be ahead in the next few years because innovation that's coming up right now is working much better than we thought. And it's really thinking in circular ways, being in a data center or in a microchip manufacturing plant.
Learn more about Ecolab at Ecolab.com.
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