Plus: Tesla will invest $250 million into its German factory for EV battery cell production. And SAP unveils a unified AI platform for enterprise. Julie Chang hosts.
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[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_02] Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Tuesday, May 12th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. We exclusively report that SpaceX and Google are in talks to launch data centers in orbit. That's according to people familiar with the discussions. One of the people said Google is also exploring similar deals with other rocket companies. Orbital data centers are an unproven technology that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said is the next frontier for the rocket company.
[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_02] It has been central to the company's investor pitch ahead of its planned public listing this summer, which is expected to be the largest IPO of all time. A deal between the two tech titans would give a boost to SpaceX's business ahead of its listing. SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment. Tesla will invest $250 million into its German plant to increase battery cell production for electric vehicles.
[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_02] The so-called Gigafactory, which opened in March 2022, makes hundreds of thousands of Model Y vehicles and millions of battery cells. The investment looks to boost output in Europe as its sales in the region regain strength. Data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association showed that Tesla's sales in the continent nearly doubled in March, following a slump that stretched more than a year.
[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_02] Finally, SAP launched its new autonomous enterprise software suite, bringing its data, cloud, artificial intelligence, and automation features under one roof. The company behind the Concord travel and expense management platform said its new offering helps clients process and contextualize their data and deploy AI agents across business functions. SAP is partnering with Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft for the new platform.
[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_02] The German group has been trying to stay on top of a technology that casts doubt on the sustainability of the software industry. Software stocks have taken a beating lately due to AI. SAP shares are down roughly 45% over the past 12 months. And that's your TMB Tech Minutes. We'll have another quick tech update in the morning.
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