Plus, AI startup Anthropic wins in court over copyrighted music. And, Gamestop’s play in bitcoin boosts its stock. Victoria Craig hosts.
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[00:00:01] Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Wednesday, March 26. I'm Victoria Craig for The Wall Street Journal. It's getting harder for American companies to sell their technology to firms in China. That's after President Trump on Tuesday added dozens of Chinese businesses to a trading blacklist, citing national security concerns. Among those added were subsidiaries of China's biggest server maker, which is a major customer for U.S. chip makers like NVIDIA and Intel.
[00:00:28] The move is the opposite of what American tech execs had asked Trump to do when he took office. Rather than rolling back Biden-era rules, Trump is further limiting what American technology Chinese firms can buy. The Trump administration's Tuesday decision is the latest salvo in a trade battle between the world's two biggest economies. Elsewhere in the latest matchup of man versus machine, machine wins again, at least in a recent court battle.
[00:00:55] A California judge denied a motion for an injunction that would have stopped AI startup Anthropic from using copyrighted music to train its chatbot called Claude. The judge ruled the major record labels which brought the challenge didn't demonstrate how using their body of work caused reputational or market-related harm to artists, ranging from Taylor Swift to the Rolling Stones. The ruling comes as Anthropic looks for ways to generate money from AI.
[00:01:20] This week, it also struck a $100 million deal with data analytics firm Databricks to sell AI tools to businesses looking to build their own AI chatbots. Finally, the original meme stock meets the original cryptocurrency. Shares of GameStop ended up over 11% today after the video game retailer said its board gave unanimous approval to allow corporate investments in Bitcoin.
[00:01:44] That looks to be part of a new strategy to boost shareholder value by deploying cash and other financial assets on investments or acquisitions. GameStop has been retooling its corporate focus in recent years as gamers switch from physical game purchases to online and subscription-based services. Financial results from last quarter showed full-year revenue fell to its lowest level since 2006, but profit more than doubled from a year ago helped by store closures that reduced the company's spend on physical retail.
[00:02:14] For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Thursday's Tech News Briefing podcast. Thank you.