President Donald Trump wants the United States to lead artificial intelligence advancement and used his first full day in office to announce a multi-billion-dollar investment.
Trump has announced that OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle would join forces to create Stargate, a new company investing $500 billion in AI infrastructure.
“A resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential under a new president,” Trump said Tuesday of the investment. Stargate is expected to create over 100,000 jobs “almost immediately,” Trump said, and the companies will begin with an initial investment of $100 billion.
So, what is Stargate?
Stargate will be spearheaded by Sam Altman of OpenAI, Larry Ellison of Oracle and Masayoshi Son of SoftBank, who joined Trump at the announcement.
Altman called Stargate “the most important project of this era.”
The project’s first data centers are under construction in Texas, Ellison said. In total, 20 data centers will be built at half a million square feet each.
Ellison said the project could power artificial intelligence that processes electronic health records. He said he believes the project could make it easier to treat illnesses and potentially cancer by developing a customized vaccine.
Son called the investment the beginning of the golden age. The Associated Press reports he committed in December to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects during Trump’s administration. He previously committed $50 billion in new investments before Trump’s first term in office.
The plans for Stargate reportedly go back to the Biden administration with tech news outlet The Information reporting on the project in March 2024. In a letter to the Biden administration’s Commerce Department last fall, OpenAI said planning and permitting for projects like these “can be lengthy and complex, particularly for energy infrastructure.”
In statements by Oracle and OpenAI on the investment, other partners announced in the project include Microsoft, MGX and chipmakers Arm and NVIDIA.
Trump’s White House has shared that it’s looking to make it easier to build new electricity generation ahead of AI’s expansion, as the U.S. races against China to develop the technology.
As for artificial intelligence regulations, on Monday, Trump overturned a 2023 order signed by former President Joe Biden to “create safety standards and watermarking of AI-generated content.”
In January, Trump announced a $20 billion investment by DAMAC Properties to build data centers for AI and cloud businesses in the U.S.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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