Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, April 16th. I'm Julie Chang for the Wall Street Journal.

We exclusively report that a new agreement between the Trump administration and the Philippines will

establish a high-tech industrial hub on the country's main island. The deal signed today aims to lessen

China's dominance over global supply chains. The

Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs said the AI-powered manufacturing hub is planned for a

4,000-acre site that the U.S. will occupy rent-free and administer it as a special economic zone.

The hub will have diplomatic immunity and operate under U.S. common law, the first arrangement

of its kind anywhere in the world. The project aims to accelerate U.S. manufacturing and secure

critical minerals like nickel and cobalt, countering China supply chain control.

The Department of Energy granted a surprise funding lifeline to nearly 2,000 clean tech initiatives,

including one in Louisiana dubbed Project Cyprus. This carbon capture project by startup's heirloom and

Climb Works was awarded over $1 billion by the Biden administration, but was facing closure under the

Trump administration. It will now receive an initial $50 million

for the Carbon Capture Project in Louisiana, a state that has traditionally been a stronghold of

the oil and gas industry. The Carbon Capture Project is among the DOE-funded Clean Tech initiatives

to get a reprieve, according to a list reviewed by the journal. Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed during a budget

hearing yesterday that about 80% of 2,200 reviewed projects passed the DOE's funding bar.

Finally, streaming video platform Roku says it has surpassed 100 million streaming households worldwide

and reported that more than half of U.S. broadband households

use Roku streaming devices. It also noted business is growing in international markets,

including Mexico, Canada, Brazil, the UK, and Latin America. For a deeper dive into what's

happening in tech, check out tomorrow's Tech News Briefing podcast.

...