Trump Announces $500 Billion AI Infrastructure Investment from OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle
TMTPOST -- U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday billions of dollars of investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure through a joint venture founded by OpenAI, SoftBank Group Corp. and Oracle Corp.
Credit：Outside Insight
The new venture, called Stargate, plans to input a total of up to $500 million with initial investment of $100 billion in AI projects, and is expected to create “over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately”, Trump said in a White House briefing on Tuesday.
“We’re starting off with tremendous investment coming into our country at levels that nobody’s really ever seen before,” Trump said told reporters. "What we want to do is we want to keep it in this country. China is a competitor, and others are competitors," Trump said. "It's technology and artificial intelligence all made in the USA."
Stargate will build “the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of AI,” including data centers, according to Trump.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison joined Trump for the announcement.
Altman touted Stargate will be “the most important project of this era.” The chief executive in a Fox News interview last month underscored importance of infrastructure for the United States needs to have the best AI infrastructure in the world if the nation wants to lead with the AI tech and capabilities.
Son said Stargate will immediately input $100 million with the total investment target of “at least” $500 million, including data centers and physical campuses.
Stargate intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States, backed by SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and Abu Dhabi-based tech investment firm MGX as initial equity funders, OpenAI said in a statement.
“This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world,” the ChatGPT-developer said.”This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.”
SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with the former having financial responsibility and the later having operational responsibility, and Son will be the venture’s chairman, according to the statement. It said Arm Holdings Plc., Microsoft Coporation, Nvidia Corporation, Oracle, and OpenAI are the key initial technology partners.
The buildout of Stargate is currently underway, starting in Texas, and it is evaluating potential sites across the U.S. for more campuses, OpenAI said in the statement.
Data centers have been under construction with 10 being built so far, according to Ellison. The Oracle co-founder suggested the Stargate project was also benefit digital health records and could develop a customized vaccine to treat diseases like cancer earlier.
Stargate is the latest effort that Trump seeks accelerate AI development in the U.S. The president earlier this month said an Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani, founder and chairman of a property developer based in Dubai, is pledging at least $20 billion over a very short period of time to build new data enters in the United States. The investment may go double, or even somewhat more than double, that amount of money, Trump added, stressing his commitment to expedite regulatory approvals for billion-dollar investments.
SoftBank CEO Son last month promised an investment of $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years during his visit to Trump at Mar-a-Lago. The investment aims to create 100,000 new jobs in emerging technologies, including the development of AI. The money will be deployed before the end of Trump’s term.
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