The US President Donald Trump on Tuesday talked up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, reports AP.
The new entity, Stargate, will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House. The initial investment is expected to be $100 billion and could reach five times that sum.
“It’s big money and high quality people,” said Trump, adding that it’s “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential” under his new administration.
Joining Trump fresh off his inauguration at the White House were Masayoshi Son of SoftBank, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle. All three credited Trump for helping to make the project possible, even though building has already started and the project goes back to 2024.
“This will be the most important project of this era,” said Altman, CEO of OpenAI.
Ellison noted that the data centers are already under construction with 10 being built so far. The chairman of Oracle suggested that the project was also tied to digital health records and would make it easier to treat diseases such as cancer by possibly developing a customized vaccine.
“This is the beginning of golden age,” said Son, referencing Trump’s statement that the U.S. would be in a “golden age” with him back in the White House.
Son, a billionaire based in Japan, already committed in December to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years. He previously committed to $50 billion in new investments ahead of Trump’s first term, which included a large stake in the troubled office-sharing company WeWork.
While Trump has seized on similar announcements to show that his presidency is boosting the economy, there were already expectations of a massive buildout in data centers and electricity plants needed for the development of AI, which holds the promise of increasing productivity by automating work but also the risk of displacing jobs if poorly implemented.
The initial plans for Stargate go back to the Biden administration. Tech news outlet The Information first reported on the project in March 2024. OpenAI has long relied on Microsoft data centers to build its AI systems, but it has increasingly signaled an interest in building its own data centers.
OpenAI wrote in a letter to the Biden administration’s Commerce Department last fall that planning and permitting for such projects “can be lengthy and complex, particularly for energy infrastructure.”
Other partners in the project include Microsoft, investor MGX and the chipmakers Arm and NVIDIA, according to separate statements by Oracle and OpenAI.
The push to build data centers predates Trump’s presidency. Last October, the financial company Blackstone estimated that the U.S. would see $1 trillion invested in data centers over five years, with another $1 trillion being committed internationally.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
