U.S. President Donald Trump has unveiled a $500 billion joint venture with Texas-based tech giant Oracle, Japan’s SoftBank, and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, aimed at advancing artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States.
The announcement was made during a White House event on Tuesday (January 21), where Trump was joined by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Oracle CTO Larry Ellison.
Calling it the largest AI infrastructure project in history, Trump described the initiative as “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential” under his administration.
“It’s all taking place right here in America. As you know, there’s great competition for AI and other things and they are coming in at the highest level,” Trump said.
The companies will initially invest $100 billion in the Stargate project, with plans to scale up to $500 billion in the coming years. President Trump stated the initiative is projected to create 100,000 U.S. jobs.
AI leaders have long emphasized the urgent need for more data centers, along with the chips, electricity, and water resources required to support the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence technologies.
Stargate: Boosting U.S. AI Dominance
Oracle, one of the largest data center operators in the U.S., brings its expertise to the project, while SoftBank’s substantial financial resources are expected to play a critical role in funding the infrastructure expansion, which is projected to cost billions of dollars.
SoftBank Group’s stocks surged over 8% on Wednesday following the announcement.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who attended Trump’s inauguration Monday, told Fox News last month that he believes Trump will “be very good at” attracting AI infrastructure investments to the United States.
“Infrastructure in the United States is super important, AI is a little bit different from other kinds of software in that it requires massive amounts of infrastructure, power, computer chips, data centers, and we need to build that here and we need to be able to have the best AI infrastructure in the world to be able to lead with the technology and the capabilities,” Altman said in the interview.
Oracle said in a statement that the Stargate project “will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world. 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.”
