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The joint venture will reportedly invest $100 billion “immediately” to deploy AI date centre infrastructure
This week, OpenAI has announced the ‘Stargate Project’, a new joint venture set to invest $500 billion into AI infrastructure over the next five years.
The new joint venture is a partnership between OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX, in which SoftBank will reportedly have financial responsibility, while OpenAI will have operational responsibility. Masayoshi Son, billionaire founder of SoftBank, will serve as chairman.
The financial details behind the ownership structure of Stargate were not revealed.
According to the OpenAI announcement, $100 billion of the planned total funds will be invested immediately.
“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,” read a joint press release from OpenAI and the other founders.
Initial deployments are already taking place in Texas, with Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, saying that work on 10 data centres is already underway.
Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI will be the key technology partners for the project, with Open AI saying it would work closely with these partners to build and operate the computing system.
In an announcement alongside the founding companies’ CEOs, newly inaugurated President Trump described the project as “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential”.
While Sam Altman (OpenAI), Masayoshi Son (SoftBank), and Larry Ellison (Oracle) all praised President Trump in the public announcement, the groundwork for the project was completed under the Biden administration.
Moving forward, however, the regulatory approach of the Trump administration will have a major impact on the success of Stargate. Initial signs appear positive for the industry (at least in financial terms…) with one of President Trump’s first executive orders being to reverse regulatory measures introduced by President Biden in 2023.
These measures primarily focussed on developing AI safety standards and proving warnings for AI-generated content.
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