In a big move to fuel the burgeoning demand for AI infrastructure, US President Donald Trump has announced a private sector investment of up to $500 billion with the launch of ‘Stargate’— a joint venture between and to build data centres and create over 1,00,000 jobs in the country.
The venture will be initially funded by SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX.
SoftBank and OpenAI will serve as the primary partners, with SoftBank overseeing financial responsibilities and OpenAI managing the operations. Masayoshi Son will assume the role of chairman.
These companies, alongside the other equity backers of Stargate, have pledged an immediate investment of $100 billion. The remaining funding is projected to come in over the next four years.
“The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately,” read OpenAI’s blog.
“This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world. This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies,” it added.
Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI will serve as the primary technology partners. Construction efforts for the data centres are already underway in Texas, and as final agreements are completed, additional sites across the country are being evaluated for more campuses.
“I think this will be the most important project of this era. We wouldn’t be able to do this without you, Mr. President,” Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said during a press conference held at the White House.
Under the initiative, Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will work closely to build and operate the computing infrastructure. This partnership builds on a longstanding collaboration between OpenAI and NVIDIA, dating back to 2016, as well as a newer partnership between OpenAI and Oracle. It also expands on OpenAI’s existing partnership with Microsoft, with the firm set to increase its usage of Azure, the cloud computing platform of Microsoft.
This additional computing infrastructure will help the Altman-led company to continue training AI models and deliver their products and services.
“All of us look forward to continuing to build and develop AI—and in particular AGI (artificial general intelligence)—for the benefit of all of humanity. We believe that this new step is critical on the path, and will enable creative people to figure out how to use AI to elevate humanity,” said OpenAI.
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