Plus: Microsoft sees jump in profits, beating Wall Street expectations. And Russia charges Telegram founder with aiding terrorism. Julie Chang hosts.
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[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_02] This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the makers of Claude. Jen Spark co-founded GenSpark, an all-in-one AI workspace. He credits his success to collaborating with trusted partners. Hear from him at the break.
[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_01] Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Wednesday, July 29th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. Starting with earnings, Meta has reported record sales of $60.8 billion for the second quarter, but said it'll be spending more on its infrastructure build-out. The company revised its projected capital spending, saying its minimum for the year would be $130 billion, $5 billion more than previously announced.
[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_01] The top end of its forecast remained unchanged at $145 billion. Meta is racing to catch up to rivals in the AI race and has deployed billions of dollars to buy chips, build data centers, and hire top talent to create cutting-edge models. Microsoft reported strong cloud growth and a boost in the number of paid AI subscribers. For the quarter ended in June, Microsoft reported that revenue rose 18% to $90 billion,
[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_01] and net income jumped 31% to $35.8 billion, both beating Wall Street expectations. Investors have been looking for indicators the tech giant's data center spending will pay off, and Azure remains one of the numbers watched most closely as a read on general AI demand. CEO Satya Nadella said that Azure revenue topped $100 billion for the first time, and Microsoft 365 co-pilot reached over 30 million paid seats.
[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01] Still, Microsoft shares are down roughly 18% so far this year. And Russian authorities issued formal charges against Telegram founder Pavel Durov today. They are accusing him of aiding terrorism by failing to crack down on Telegram channels used by Ukraine to plan attacks in Russia. The country's top security agency has taken measures to place Durov, who lives in Dubai, on an international wanted list. Durov and his company did not immediately respond to requests for comment,
[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_01] but the official Telegram account on X posted a photo this morning of Durov giving the middle finger. And that's your TNB Tech Minutes. Check back in the morning for another Quick Tech Update.
[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_02] Anthropics Cloud is AI for problem solvers, like GenSpark's KJu. Here's what this partnership means for him.
[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_00] GenSpark is the all-in-one workspace. We do AI spreadsheets, AI slides, AI documents, all kinds of work for normal white-collar workers. We are a very small startup, so we cannot do everything by ourselves. And working with trusted partners is really, really important. In the collaboration, the openness is the key. Some of the secrets you kept today will be worthless tomorrow. The success of the partnership comes to deep mutual trust.
[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00] When it's really working, it's a very tight feedback loop.
[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_02] What problems will you solve with Claude? Get started at Claude.com slash problem solvers.