OpenAI says it will partner with Japanese conglomerates SoftBank and Oracle, among others, to build multiple data centers for AI in the US. to another country. The companies expect to commit $100 billion to Stargate initially and return up to $500 billion to the venture over the next four years. He promised to create “hundreds of thousands” of jobs and “secure American leadership in AI.” “Project Stargate is a new company going [build] a new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States,” OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank said in a joint statement. “This project not only supports the re-industrialization of the United States, but also provides strategic capabilities to protect the national security of America and its allies.” The company made the announcement during a press conference at the White House on Tuesday, where President Donald Trump spoke about his plans to invest in US infrastructure. SoftBank CEO Sam Altman and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison were also in attendance as a partner So will Arm and Nvidia. MGX’s first public deal is an investment in OpenAI. SoftBank and OpenAI are also listed as “early equity investors.” is the lead partner for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility,” the statement continued. “Masayoshi Son will be the chairman [of Stargate] … As part of Stargate, Oracle, Nvidia, and OpenAI will closely collaborate to build and operate this computing system. Data centers could one day contain chips designed by OpenAI. The company is said to be aggressively building a team of chip designers and engineers, and is working with semiconductor companies Broadcom and TSMC to create AI chips for running models that could arrive as soon as 2026. SoftBank is already an investor in OpenAI, having reportedly committed $500 million to the funding round the end of the AI startup and an additional $1.5 billion to allow OpenAI staff to sell shares in a tender offer. Oracle, currently, has a deal with OpenAI to provide AI computing resources. SoftBank also previously pledged to invest $100 billion in the US over the next four years. Son and Trump have had a close working relationship since 2016, during Trump’s first term, when Son announced that SoftBank would invest $50 billion in US startups and create 50,000 jobs. Information previously reported that OpenAI is in talks with Oracle to rent an entire data center in Abilene, Texas – a data center that can reach almost a gigawatt of electricity by mid-2026. (A gigawatt is enough to power approximately 750,000 small houses.) Data center startup Crusoe Energy said it is involved in the project, which is estimated to cost around $3.4 billion. The Abilene site will be Stargate’s first site, and OpenAI said Stargate is “evaluating potential sites around the country for more campuses as [it finalizes] definitive agreement.” By 2029, Stargate could measure up to 20 data center installations. “Each building is half a million square feet,” Ellison said during the briefing. “There are 10 buildings currently under construction.” It is unclear what relationship, if any, Stargate should the rumored partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI to play a $100 billion supercomputer. TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI for additional information. Last year, The Information reported that Microsoft and OpenAI will build a series of data centers that will begin in five phases over the next few years, culminating in Stargate: a 5-gigawatt facility spanning several hundred acres. Stargate is expected to take between five and six years to complete, according to Information smaller for OpenAI around 2026. Some tech leaders are calling for the US to increase investment in data centers, especially as the AI industry continues to advance. to grow at an explosive pace. AI systems require very large server banks to develop and run at scale. Goldman Sachs estimates that AI will represent approximately 19% of data center power demand by 2028. OpenAI blames the lack of available computing for delaying its product, and computing capacity is reportedly a source of tension between the AI company and Microsoft, which is close. major collaborators and investors. Microsoft, which recently announced it will spend $80 billion on AI data centers, said in a recent blog post that the company’s success depends on “new partnerships established in large-scale infrastructure investments.” In an interview with Bloomberg, Altman said he believes it is critical that what he sees as barriers to building additional data center infrastructure in the US be removed. “Something I totally agree with [President Trump] in, it’s wild how difficult it has become to build it in the United States, “said Altman in an interview. “Power plants, data centers, and so on. I understand how bureaucratic cruft is built, but it is not useful for the country in general. Massive data center projects have vocal critics who say data centers often deliver fewer jobs than promised and tend to have heavy environmental impacts. Data centers are typically water-hungry, putting a strain on areas where water resources are scarce, and high power requirements force some utilities to rely heavily on fossil fuels. The concern does not appear to be a slow investment. According to a McKinsey report, capital expenditures for the procurement and installation of mechanical and electrical systems for data centers could exceed $250 billion in the next five years. In January, Trump announced that Hussain Sajwani, the Emirati billionaire businessman who founded the giant property development DAMAC Properties, will invest $ 20 billion in a new data center among US Industry insiders have expressed skepticism about the concreteness of the deal. Separately, Microsoft and investor BlackRock last September formed a group, the Global Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Investment Partnership (GAIIP), to attract up to $100 billion to develop data centers for AI and the infrastructure to power it. Other participants in GAIIP include MGX and infrastructure investor Global Infrastructure Partners.
