TNB Tech Minute: Former Meta Executive Will Join OpenAI to Lead Ad Sales

0:00Here's your morning TNB Tech Minute for Monday, March 23rd. I'm Danny Lewis for The Wall Street Journal. We exclusively report that OpenAI has hired a former top meta executive to lead its push into ad sales. Dave Dugan, who said earlier this month he was stepping down from his role at the social media giant, has been appointed Vice President of Global Ad Solutions at OpenAI. The high profile higher underscores the chat GBT makers urgent push to generate new revenue streams to support its enormous funding requirements for artificial intelligence projects and computing needs. Entering the digital ad market, where meta is a juggernaut that generated nearly $200 billion in ad revenue last year, marks a significant strategic shift for the AI company. News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI. Nvidia and Emerald AI say they plan to work with several power companies to develop a new class of AI-powered factories designed to connect to energy grids faster, while supporting power systems amid surging electricity demand.

1:03The company said the future facilities would use so-called flexible energy assets, supporting power grids by modulating consumption and leveraging on-site generation and storage. Nvidia and Emerald AI's executives said flexible operation could help unlock additional capacity on the U.S. grid by reducing the need to build infrastructure designed for peak energy demand. And we exclusively report that a bipartisan pair of U.S. senators will introduce legislation banning sports betting from prediction markets. The bill would bar entities regulated by the commodity futures trading commission, including Kalshi and Polymarket's U.S. platforms, from listing contracts related to sports events. It's the first bipartisan bill seeking to regulate prediction markets. While Kalshi and Polymarket offer yes or no wagers tied to everything from politics to the weather to pop culture, much of the trading activity is focused on professional and college sports, putting the platforms in competition with betting sites like Fandule and DraftKings. Polymarket has a data partnership with Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

2:04That's your TNB Tech Minute. Join us again this afternoon for more.