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Stargate’s $500 billion bet on AI

OpenAI's Sam Altman is one of a group of tech CEOs part of the Stargate initiative, which aims to build the infrastructure in the U.S. to advance artificial intelligence projects.
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OpenAI's Sam Altman is one of a group of tech CEOs part of the Stargate initiative, which aims to build the infrastructure in the U.S. to advance artificial intelligence projects.

A group of tech CEOs joined President Trump at the White House on Tuesday to announce a joint AI venture they say will invest $500 billion and add “hundreds of thousands of jobs” to the U.S. economy, according to a statement on the venture’s web page that Trump echoed.

The new partnership, called Stargate, is a joint venture of OpenAI – maker of ChatGPT – Austin-based data company, Oracle, and venture capital firm SoftBank. The partners said Stargate will create the infrastructure needed to advance artificial intelligence projects.

Texas Standard producer/reporter Shelly Brisbin says the project also includes other partners, including companies that build AI hardware.

“That includes… chipmakers like ARM and Nvidia, so there’s a lot of support across the industry for a project like this,” Brisbin said.

Stargate is set to begin work with a pledged $100 million. SoftBank will play the lead role in raising money for the project, which the partners hope will attract $500 billion in the next four years.

Stargate’s first facility will be a massive data center, already under construction in Abilene, and due to be operated by Oracle. The data center will rely on what boosters say is abundant power available in the region.

AI facilities require tremendous amounts of energy to operate.

“This Stargate thing may be new in terms of public awareness, but it’s actually been under development for quite some time,” Brisbin said.

Notably absent from the White House unveiling of Stargate was Elon Musk, a major backer of the president, and owner of his own AI company, xAI. Since the announcement, Musk, who is in a legal dispute with OpenAI’s Sam Altman, questioned on X whether Stargate had the money it said it would need to get underway.