TNB Tech Minute: OpenAI Completes Silicon Valley’s Largest-Ever Funding Round

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Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Tuesday, March 31st. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. OpenAI completed the largest funding round in Silicon Valley history, raising $122 billion. The deal shows how the ChatGP team maker is diversifying its shareholder base ahead of its planned IPO, which is expected by the end of the year.

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As part of the financing, OpenAI raised more than $3 billion from wealthy investors through banks and said it would be included in several exchange-traded funds managed by ARK Invest. Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank also committed $110 billion to the funding round, while additional cash came from Silicon Valley and Wall Street investment firms.

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Oracle began to significantly lay off its workforce today. The cuts come as the cloud and database company invests in costly data centers for AI.

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According to employees and several posts on LinkedIn, Oracle is cutting jobs across its business lines. Some affected staff told the journal they received an early morning email from Oracle leadership, informing them that it was their last day. The full scope of the layoffs isn't yet clear, but some employees said internal metrics show a reduction so far in the thousands.

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Representatives for Oracle declined to comment. Shares in the company are down nearly 50 percent in the past six months as investors expressed concern about its data center financing plan.

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And Amazon has secured a deal to provide internet access on Delta Airlines flights. Delta said it plans to use Amazon's Leo satellite internet business for in-flight Wi-Fi on an initial 500 aircraft starting in 2028. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Delta's choice intensifies competition in the satellite internet industry.