OpenAI announced that it will partner with Japanese conglomerates SoftBank and Oracle to build multiple data centers for AI in the United States.
The joint venture, called The Stargate Project, will begin with a large data center project in Texas and eventually expand to other states. The companies expect to invest an initial $100 billion in Stargate and spend up to $500 billion into the project over the next four years.
They promise it will create “hundreds of thousands” of jobs and “secure American leadership in AI.”
“The Stargate Project is a new company aiming to (build) a new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States,” OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank said in a joint statement. “This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States, but will also provide strategic capabilities to protect the national security of the United States and its allies.”
The companies made the announcement Tuesday during a White House press conference where President Donald Trump spoke about his plans to invest in U.S. infrastructure. Softbank President Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison attended.
Microsoft is also involved in Stargate as a technology partner. The same goes for Arm and Nvidia. Middle East AI fund MGX will also invest in SoftBank. MGX’s first public transaction was an investment in OpenAI.
Softbank, OpenAI, and Oracle are also listed as early equity investors in Stargate.
“SoftBank and OpenAI are key partners in Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility,” the statement continued. “Masayoshi Son will become chairman[of Stargate](…) As part of Stargate, Oracle, Nvidia, and OpenAI will work closely together to build and operate this computing system. ”
Data centers could one day house chips designed by OpenAI. The company is actively building a team of chip designers and engineers, and is working with semiconductor companies Broadcom and TSMC to develop AI chips to run models that could arrive as early as 2026. It is said that it does.
SoftBank is already an investor in OpenAI, reportedly putting $500 million into the AI startup’s last funding round and another $1.5 billion to allow OpenAI staff to sell their shares in a tender offer. He says he promised. Meanwhile, Oracle has an ongoing agreement with OpenAI to supply AI computing resources.
SoftBank also previously pledged to invest $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. Son and Trump have had a close working relationship since 2016, during the first term of the Trump administration, when Son announced that SoftBank would invest $50 billion in U.S. startups and create 50,000 jobs. has been built.
The Information previously reported that OpenAI was in talks with Oracle to lease an entire data center in Abilene, Texas. The data center could reach nearly 1 gigawatt of power by mid-2026. (One gigawatt is enough to power about 750,000 small homes.) Data center startup Crusoe Energy is said to be involved in the project, which will cost about $3.4 billion. It is estimated at $.
The Abilene site will be Stargate’s first site, and Open AI says Stargate is “evaluating potential sites across the country to build more campuses in a final agreement.” said.
It’s unclear what, if any, Stargate has to do with Microsoft’s rumored partnership with OpenAI to launch a $100 billion supercomputer. TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI for additional information.
Last year, The Information reported that Microsoft and OpenAI are building a series of data centers for AI in five phases over the next few years, culminating in Stargate, a 5 gigawatt facility spanning hundreds of acres of land. It was reported that it is expected to reach . According to The Information, Stargate was expected to take five to six years to complete. Toward its completion, Microsoft was reportedly planning to launch a small data center for OpenAI around 2026.
Many technology leaders are calling on the U.S. to increase investment in data centers, especially as the AI industry continues to grow at an explosive pace. Developing and running AI systems at scale requires huge banks of servers.
Goldman Sachs estimates that by 2028, AI will account for approximately 19% of data center power demand. Computing power is reportedly a source of tension between the AI company and Microsoft, with OpenAI claiming that a lack of available computing is to blame for product delays. Collaborators and major investors.
Microsoft, which recently announced that it plans to spend $80 billion on AI data centers, said in a recent blog post that its success depends on “new partnerships built on significant infrastructure investments.” In an interview with Bloomberg, Altman said he believes there is an urgent need to remove what he perceives to be barriers to building additional data center infrastructure in the United States.
“One thing that I wholeheartedly agree with (President Trump) is how difficult it has become to build anything in America,” Altman said in the interview. “Power plants, data centers, things like that. I understand how bureaucratic corruption accumulates, but it doesn’t help the country as a whole.”
Large-scale data center projects have drawn vocal critics who say they often create fewer jobs than promised and tend to have serious environmental impacts. Data centers are typically water-intensive, putting a strain on water-poor regions, and their high power requirements are forcing some utilities to rely heavily on fossil fuels. I am.
These concerns don’t seem to be delaying investment. According to a McKinsey report, capital expenditures for the procurement and installation of data center mechanical and electrical systems could exceed $250 billion over the next five years.
President Trump announced in January that Hussein Sajwani, the billionaire Emirati businessman who founded Damac Properties, would invest $20 billion in new data centers across the U.S., industry officials agreed. He expresses skepticism about the concreteness of