Stargate Project launched for AI infrastructure

In a venture unveiled by Pres. Donald Trump on January 21, companies including SoftBank, Oracle, OpenAI, and MGX are funding a new AI company, called the Stargate Project, to invest $500 billion to build AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States.

Investments are intended to happen during the next four years, with $100 billion being deployed immediately. The infrastructure, OpenAI said, will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world. The 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, according to OpenAI.

Initial technology partners in the project include Microsoft, Arm, Oracle, Nvidia, and OpenAI. The buildout currently is under way, starting in Texas. Potential sites for other campuses are being evaluated across the country. Oracle, Nvidia, and OpenAI will collaborate to build and operate the Stargate Project computing system. The project will also build on OpenAI’s existing partnership with Microsoft. OpenAI will continue to increase its use of Microsoft’s Azure cloud as OpenAI continues its work with Microsoft with this additional compute to train leading models and deliver great products and services, OpenAI said.

Participants look forward to continuing to build and develop AI—and in particular AGI (artificial general intelligence)—for the benefit of all of humanity, OpenAI said. “We believe that this new step is critical on the path, and will enable creative people to figure out how to use AI to elevate humanity,” OpenAI said in its released statement. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly acknowledged that AGI has not yet been developed.