'Stargate' is now a real thing, but sadly not a portal to an alien planet: A bunch of tech companies plan to spend $500 billion building AI data centers
OpenAI and SoftBank are leading a joint venture that plans to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure in the United States. The project was underway before today, but the announcement was saved for President Trump's first week back in office—the president was joined on Tuesday by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison to talk up the new company.
The venture is called Stargate, but has nothing to do with an Egyptian wormhole, I'm afraid. It's being run by OpenAI and Softbank, and the goal is to spend $500 billion to build AI infrastructure in the US over four years, with $100 billion being deployed now. The first facility is already being built in Texas, OpenAI said in a statement, and the ChatGPT company is «evaluating potential sites across the country for more campuses.» Trump claims the project will create 100,000 American jobs «almost immediately.»
The president has also revoked a Biden order which aimed to put guardrails on AI development. The order wasn't especially effective according to a few accounts I've seen, but its dismissal sends the message that AI developers have at least four years to do what they want in the US without the threat of federal intervention.
Along with OpenAI and Softbank, Oracle and AI investor MGX have put cash into the Stargate pot, and the project's technology partners include Nvidia, Microsoft (which has invested over $10 billion in OpenAI), and Arm. As for what this infrastructure is, exactly, Trump said that they're building «colossal data centers.»
That the AI industry is investing in data centers is nothing new—Google's even looking at mini nuclear reactors as power sources—though we don't know exactly what OpenAI and friends plan to do with these new facilities. The most specific example came from Ellison, who said that they'll use the infrastructure to analyze health records and help doctors make diagnoses. Later in the press conference, Altman said that he believes diseases,
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