OpenAI is partnering with SoftBank and Oracle on a $500 billion data center project

OpenAI says it will partner with both Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and Oracle to build multiple data centers for artificial intelligence in the US.

The joint venture, called The Stargate Project, will begin with a large data center project in Texas and eventually expand to other states. The companies expect to commit $100 billion to Stargate initially and $500 billion over the next four years.

They promise it will create “hundreds of thousands” of jobs and “provide American leadership in AI.”

OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank said in a joint statement that “The Stargate project is a new company that intends to build (build) a new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States.” statement. “This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States, but will also provide a strategic opportunity to protect the national security of America and its allies.”

The companies announced this during a press conference at the White House on Tuesday, where President Donald Trump spoke about investment plans in US infrastructure. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison were in attendance.

Microsoft is also involved in Stargate as a technology partner. So are Arm and Nvidia. Middle East AI fund MGX to join SoftBank in its investment; MGX the first public transaction It was an investment in OpenAI.

“SoftBank and OpenAI are Stargate’s lead partners, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility,” the statement said. “Masayoshi Son will be (Stargate’s) chairman (…) As part of Stargate, Oracle, Nvidia and OpenAI will work closely together to build and operate this computing system.”

Data centers may someday house chips made by OpenAI. It is a company said that he is building an aggressive team is working with chip designers and engineers and semiconductor firms Broadcom and TSMC to create an AI chip for models that could arrive in 2026.

SoftBank is already an investor in OpenAI reported Allocated $500 million to an AI startup final funding round and one addition $1.5 billion to allow OpenAI employees to sell shares in a tender offer. Oracle, meanwhile, continues deal With OpenAI to provide AI computing resources.

Softbank too promised before investing $100 billion in the United States over the next four years. Son and Trump have had a close working relationship since 2016, during Trump’s first term, when Son announced that SoftBank would invest $50 billion in US startups and create 50,000 jobs.

Previous Information informed OpenAI was in talks with Oracle to lease an entire data center in Abilene, Texas — a data center that could reach nearly one gigawatt of electricity by mid-2026. (One gigawatt is enough to power about 750,000 small homes.) Starting a data center Crusoe energy was said to be participates in a project estimated to cost about $3.4 billion.

That Abilene site will be Stargate’s first site, and OpenAI says Stargate is “evaluating potential sites around the country for more campuses as (finalizes) firm agreements.”

It’s unclear what, if any, connection Stargate has to the rumored partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI to build a $100 billion supercomputer. TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI for more information.

Last year The Information informed Microsoft and OpenAI will build a series of data centers for AI over the next few years, starting with five phases and culminating in Stargate: a 5-gigawatt facility spanning several hundred acres. According to The Information, Stargate was expected to take five to six years to complete. Around 2026, Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch a smaller data center for OpenAI.

A number of tech leaders have called for the US to increase its investment in data centers, especially as the artificial intelligence industry continues to grow at a rapid pace. Artificial intelligence systems require huge banks of servers to develop and run at scale.

Goldman Sachs estimates AI will account for approximately 19% of data center energy demand by 2028 blamed It is reported that the lack of available computations to delay their products and become a source of computing power tension between an artificial intelligence company and its close associate and major investor, Microsoft.

Microsoft, which recently announced it will spend $80 billion on AI data centers, said recently blog post states that the company’s success depends on “new partnerships based on large-scale infrastructure investments.” one interview In a conversation with Bloomberg, Altman said he believes what he perceives as barriers to building additional data center infrastructure in the United States will be removed urgently.

“What I really deeply agree with (President Trump) is how difficult it has become to build things in the United States,” Altman said in that interview. “Power plants, data centers, anything. I understand how the bureaucracy is built, but it is not good for the country as a whole.”

There are vocal critics who say that data centers often create massive data center projects less affairs from promised and has a serious impact on the environment. Data centers are typically water-hungry, straining regions with insufficient water resources, and their high energy demands have forced some utilities to rely heavily on fossil fuels.

These concerns do not slow down investment in any way. For McKinsey reportcapital expenditures for the purchase and installation of mechanical and electrical systems for data centers could exceed $250 billion over the next five years.

Trump announced this in January Hussain Sajwani, the Emirati billionaire businessman who founded property development giant DAMAC Properties, will invest Insiders of the $20 billion in new data centers within the U.S. industry are skeptical of the data. the specificity of the transactionhowever.