$400 Billion Investment, 25,000 Jobs, Five New AI Data Centres: OpenAI's Big Bet To Boost US AI Infra
The infrastructure expansion is being carried out with the intention to make high performance computational capabilities of AI "more accessible", OpenAI said.
Stargate LLC, the AI joint venture between by OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, announced five new data centre sites for its artificial intelligence infrastructure network expansion goals.
The venture aims to execute 'The Stargate Project', named after the sci-fi movie where 'stargates' were portals to other worlds. It was announced on Jan 21. 2025 by US President Donald Trump. The project aims to invest $500 billion into US AI infrastructure by 2029, having been planned since 2022.
OpenAI, in a blogpost on Tuesday, said the infrastructure expansion is being carried out with the intention to make high performance computational capabilities of AI "more accessible."
Trump had, earlier, said that he would use executive orders to streamline and expedite the process especially regarding energy infrastructure.
Three of the new sites announced are estimated to generate 25,000 onsite jobs along with "thousands of additional jobs" in the US.
The data centre sites combined with the 10 data centres being built in Abilene Texas site will bring the project to around 7 gigawatts of planned capacity and more than $400 billion in investment over the next three years.
"This puts us on a clear path to securing the full $500 billion, 10-gigawatt commitment we announced in January by the end of 2025, ahead of schedule," OpenAI said.
SoftBank and OpenAI will partner to develop three of these aforementioned sites located in Shackelford County, Texas; Doña Ana County, New Mexico; and the Midwest. These three sites, along with the 600 megawatt expansion of the Texas site are expected to generate 5.5 gigwatts of capacity.
The other two sites will be able to scale to 1.5 gigawatts over the coming 18 months. Also developed via the partnership of SoftBank and OpenAI, the sites will be located in Lordstown, Ohio and Milam County, Texas.
The Ohio site is expected to be operational next year. The Texas site will be developed in partnership with SB Energy, a SoftBank Group firm. SB Energy is providing powered infrastructure for a fast-build data center site.
“Stargate is harnessing SoftBank’s innovative data center design and energy expertise to deliver the scalable compute that powers AI’s future. Together with OpenAI, Arm, and our Stargate partners, we are paving the way for a new era where AI advances humanity,” Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp said.
The infra projects will be using Nvidia GB200 racks for processing, and power the sites with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
“Oracle’s reliable, scalable, and secure AI infrastructure is helping OpenAI rapidly scale its business. To meet this enormous demand, we continue to expand OCI’s footprint at an unrivaled pace to deliver the most performant and cost-effective AI training and inferencing," Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk said.
OpenAI said that with the announcement of these sites, the $500 billion investment will be completed and surpassed.
"We’re already making historic progress toward that goal through Stargate and moving quickly not just to meet its initial commitment, but to lay the foundation for what comes next,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said.
