President Trump is expected to announce a joint venture Tuesday between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to create at least $100 billion in computing infrastructure to power artificial intelligence, according to two people familiar with the announcement.
The venture, called Stargate, adds to significant investments by technology companies in U.S. data centers, huge buildings filled with servers that provide computing power. According to sources, the total could reach $500 billion in four years. The three companies intend to contribute funds to the venture, which will be open to other investors and will start with a first data center in Texas.
The joint venture announcement is set to be an early trophy for Trump, even though the effort to set up the joint venture predates his taking office on Monday. Trump has promised to accelerate the production of American-made artificial intelligence to compete with China for global leadership in the technology, and on Monday he revoked an executive order from former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. that imposed security standards and other regulations . requirements for government use of AI
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son; and Oracle founder Larry Ellison will attend the White House announcement with Trump, the people said.
CBS previously reported news of the announcement.
OpenAI has long worked to fund its ambitious goals of building data center campuses around the world. This month, the company unveiled an economic road map for the new administration centered on a large-scale plan for U.S. data centers used to power artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT.
For years, Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s largest investor, has provided the data center infrastructure needed to power the start-up. But as ChatGPT’s maker struggled to get enough computing power from Microsoft, the two companies agreed that OpenAI could seek additional data centers built by Oracle.
(The New York Times is suing OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement of news content related to artificial intelligence systems. The two companies have denied the lawsuit’s claims.)
Last year, Altman began meeting with investors in the United Arab Emirates, computer chip makers in Asia and officials in Washington, proposing they team up to build new chip factories and data centers around the world.
After officials in Washington expressed concern that a U.S. company was trying to build vital technology in the Middle East, OpenAI focused on building new data centers in the United States.