A major technology deal is set to reshape how enterprises manage and use real-time data. According to a press release, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and Confluent announced that IBM will acquire all outstanding Confluent shares for $31 each, a transaction that values the data-streaming company at $11 billion. Based in Mountain View, CA, Confluent provides an open-source platform that enables real-time data streaming, helping businesses process, connect, and manage data across applications and systems. The company serves more than 6,500 clients — including over 40% of the Fortune 500 — and integrates with major cloud providers such as AWS , Microsoft, and others, according to the press release. “IBM and Confluent together will enable enterprises to deploy generative and agentic AI more effectively by providing trusted communication and data flow across environments, applications, and APIs,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM chairman, president, and CEO, in the press release....

The gift that keeps on giving, MacKenzie Scott, has made another contribution to an HBCU. As previously reported by AFROTECH™ , the philanthropist, who acquired the vast majority of her $35 billion net worth following a divorce from Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, has donated millions to various Historically Black Colleges and Universities. She was inspired to give to others by the late author Toni Morrison, who was her teacher and mentor. After Scott became a billionaire, she pledged to give half her wealth away and signed The Giving Pledge. Some of her investments in higher education this year alone include: Voorhees University ($19 million) Howard University ($80 million) Spelman College ($38 million) Morgan State University ($63 million) Norfolk State University ($50 million) Winston-Salem State University ($50 million) North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University ($63 million) Prairie View A&M University ($63 million) Dillard University ($19 million) “This gift is more...

Tyler, the Creator was recognized in Hollywood on Dec. 6 as Variety presented him with its Innovator of the Decade award during the publication’s annual Hitmakers event. The honor marked a moment of reflection for the artist, who spoke about his 15-year career while accepting the award. According to Variety, he was surprised when he was informed he had been selected and noted that the news made him think about the artists he has long considered innovators, including Stevie Wonder, Missy Elliott, Kanye West, and Pharrell Williams. “It made me think like, ‘Yo, I don’t take the time out to look back at what I’ve done, for me, the folks around me, for the last 15 years. For me, always looking forward, me always wondering what the next thing is — that’s where I sit comfortable at,” he told attendees, per the outlet. André 3000 presented the Innovator of the Decade award and highlighted Tyler, the Creator’s influence across multiple creative fields. He noted Tyler, the Creator’s...

NFL legends Marshawn Lynch and Michael Robinson have partnered with Pine Sports, a sports-focused AI startup that has rapidly grown its community of bettors and fantasy players since launching in 2020. A key part of the partnership is Jaxon, Pine’s proprietary large language model — likened to OpenAI’s ChatGPT but built specifically for sports betting and fantasy, according to a news release shared with AFROTECH™. Beta-launched in 2024, Jaxon is trained exclusively on Pine’s sports data and live markets, blending data , sportsbook integrations, and advanced analytics to deliver actionable insights in seconds. “This is dope, it’s taken me a minute to fully grasp all that AI can do and be, but this right here… is a no brainer,” Lynch said in a statement. “I see what Pine’s doing with Jaxon, and I’m with it, why wouldn’t you use something that helps you play smarter, ya’ know what I mean?” Robinson added, “This tech is real. Fans want quick, smart answers. They want to know what...

Elaine Welteroth, journalist and founder of nonprofit birthFUND, wants people to help Black women and women of color access supportive birth care. In a viral TikTok video reportedly captured in the triage area of Dallas Regional Medical Center in Mesquite, TX, patient Karrie Jones is asked a series of questions, such as her due date, by a white nurse while Jones is sitting in a wheelchair in pain, minutes away from giving birth, per NBC News. Jones supposedly had to wait more than half an hour before being admitted to the hospital. Less than a week later, a separate viral video showed an incident of reported negligence in Franciscan Hospital in Crown Point, IL, with patient Mercedes Wells, notes NBC News. She was experiencing contractions, which she told the outlet meant she wouldn’t be far from delivering. However, she spent six hours at the hospital and was reportedly never seen by a doctor, just a nurse, and was sent home. Within eight minutes of leaving the hospital, her...

A major technology foundation is distributing funding to nonprofit organizations across the United States this year. According to a press release, the OpenAI Foundation announced $40.5 million in unrestricted grants to 208 nonprofits across the country. The awards support organizations working in AI literacy and public understanding, community innovation, and economic opportunity. Some of the grantees include STEM From Dance, which partners with schools, community centers, and youth programs to integrate dance and AI education for young girls of color across several states. Digital NEST in California is a workforce development nonprofit helping youth in agricultural communities gain career skills, mentorship, training, and paid work experience to thrive in the digital economy. 3 Dots Downtown, a community arts center in Pennsylvania, offers programs and workshops focused on AI literacy, art, and professional development. And Amigos Together for Kids in Florida supports parents and...

Former President Barack Obama has confirmed that the long-awaited Obama Presidential Center in Chicago’s historic Jackson Park will open in June 2026. Speaking during a conversation at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR, on Monday, Dec. 1, Obama narrowed the opening to a specific month but did not give an exact date, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “We’re going to open in June so that y’all don’t have to bring your coats up,” he said, per the outlet, bringing some clarity to a project that has been over a decade in the making. The Obama Presidential Center, first announced in 2015, was originally expected to open in 2021. Construction was delayed multiple times due to federal reviews and legal challenges, with groundbreaking only beginning in 2021. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the $800 million center, which is now on track to be the most expensive presidential center in U.S. history, spans 20 acres, and features a 225-foot museum tower, an...

Netflix has announced a $72 billion deal, to acquire Warner Bros., valuing it at $82.7 billion including debt, as AFROTECH™ previously reported. The transaction is anticipated to impact both the entertainment and technology sectors. Since the news broke, some observers, according to Fortune, have raised concerns about its impact on Hollywood, while analysts point to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing as key factors. Melissa Otto, head of research at S&P Global Visible Alpha, told the outlet that discussions of the deal often overlook the role of Google and its tensor processing unit (or TPU) chips. TPUs, as Exhibit Magazine notes, are custom chips designed specifically for deep learning tasks. “What TPU chips do really, really well is in the modality of video in generative AI,” Otto said, explaining that they essentially turn mathematical representations into moving pictures in much the same way graphics processing units, or GPUs, revolutionized natural language...

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the world’s largest HR organization, has been hit with an $11.5 million ruling after a former employee accused the group of racial discrimination and retaliation. A Colorado jury found SHRM liable on Dec. 5, 2025, and awarded $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages to Rehab Mohamed, Business Insider (BI) reports . “We are very happy that the jury spent a week listening very closely to the evidence and that they decided, as a result, to hold SHRM accountable,” said Mohamed’s attorney, Ariel DeFazio, per BI. The verdict will “send a message to workplaces in the entire country,” she added. The Reason Behind SHRM’s Employee Lawsuit Mohamed, who worked as an instructional designer from 2016 to 2020, filed her lawsuit against SHRM in 2022. She accused a white supervisor of racial discrimination and claimed SHRM retaliated after she reported the behavior, per BI. Mohamed said she repeatedly raised concerns...

A major new investment from billionaire Michael Bloomberg is helping expand educational access for Black students through a partnership that brings K–12 learning directly to the campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Bloomberg Philanthropies, together with the national education organization City Fund, has committed $20 million ($10 million each) to support public charter schools and connect students with early college opportunities at nearby HBCUs, according to a press release. The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) will be a key partner in the effort. Forbes notes that the new funding supports two schools in Alabama’s Black Belt region, an area historically underserved in public education. The first is the D.C. Wolfe Charter School in Shorter, a redevelopment of the former D.C. Wolfe Elementary School that is expected to open in fall 2026, just minutes from Tuskegee University. The second, I Dream Big Academy, opened in August 2025 on the campus of Stillman...

As AI continues to spread across the United States and its influence shows no signs of fading, several Democratic lawmakers reintroduced the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Civil Rights Act on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA) first introduced the AI Civil Rights Act in 2024 to “establish protections for individual rights with respect to computational algorithms, and for other purposes,” The Grio reports . On Dec. 2, the progressive senator explained that AI tools are “biased against marginalized communities,” per the outlet. “We must address AI-powered bias and discrimination in the AI age,” Markey said in a news release shared on Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley’s website. “Under the AI Civil Rights Act, America would show leadership in AI — not just technological leadership, but moral leadership ,” he continued . “We cannot abandon our principles in reckless pursuit of technological superiority. Otherwise, we risk building a future where innovation races ahead,...

Kristen Wells-Collins is inspiring young girls to become chemists. Wells-Collins was raised in an under-resourced community in Beaumont, TX, and said she had limited exposure to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), according to her commentary on “The Jennifer Hudson Show.” However, Wells-Collins went on to pursue a degree in chemistry at Prairie View A&M University, according to her LinkedIn . After her studies, she became exposed to cosmetic chemistry and was immediately hooked . Black To The Lab Wells-Collins’s interest in STEM has led her to become a cosmetic chemist educator and founder of Black to the Lab, which provides an activity kit with hands-on learning experiences for girls to create lip gloss, body scrubs, lotion, and more. She is driven by a mission to increase representation in the field among Black girls, she told Jennifer Hudson. PC: Black to the Lab “We know that they know makeup, so they know science. We want young girls to know that their...

The New York Times reported on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025, that it has filed a lawsuit against AI start-up Perplexity for alleged copyright infringement. According to the media company, Perplexity continues to use its content despite multiple requests over the past 18 months to stop until an agreement can be reached. Founded in 2022 by former OpenAI engineer Aravind Srinivas and other entrepreneurs, Perplexity is a free AI-powered answer engine that aims to provide “accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question,” according to its website. Filed in a New York federal court, the suit claims Perplexity’s search engine pulls large portions of information from The Times’ website or database to generate responses for users, which goes beyond fair use by offering content that directly competes with the newspaper. “Perplexity provides commercial products to its own users that substitute for The Times, without permission or remuneration,” the suit said, per The Times. The Times also...

A new cohort of small businesses has received a financial boost to power their business with AI. The C oramino Fund Through The Coramino Fund, the investment arm of Kevin Hart and Juan Domingo Beckmann’s tequila company Gran Coramino, $10,000 grants have been allocated to small business owners over the past three years so they can utilize AI training provided by 1st Street Partnerships to improve their operations. The program was launched in partnership with Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC) and is part of a $1.5 million commitment to support more than 150 under-resourced entrepreneurs across the U.S. and Mexico as they compete with larger companies, according to information provided to AFROTECH™. “According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 20% of new businesses fail within their first year, and nearly 50% fail by their fifth year. The most successful entrepreneurs — locally and nationally — are the ones that have support, whether from their networks, communities,...

Beyoncé’s partnership with Levi’s is delivering strong returns. “Cowboy Carter,” the eighth studio album from the Houston-born singer, was released on March 29, 2024. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 , and Beyoncé won Best Country Album and Album of the Year at the 2025 Grammy Awards, according to The New York Times. Among the tracks listed on the album is “Levii’s Jeans” featuring Post Malone. Six months after the single’s release, a global partnership between iconic denim brand Levi’s and Beyoncé was announced and has been faring well. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, the company’s stock rose by 20% one week after “Levii’s Jeans” was released, leading to a surge in sales of its denim skirts and pants. “One of the things that really is significant about the Levi’s brand, and we place a lot of emphasis and investment, is making sure that Levi’s brand remains in the center of culture,” Levi Strauss CEO Michelle Gass previously shared with CBS News. “And I don’t think there’s...