OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX have announced Stargate on 21 January 2025, a company planning US$500 billion of investment over four years in US AI infrastructure for OpenAI.
The partners say they will begin deploying US$100 billion immediately. Those figures describe an investment plan, rather than money already spent.
SoftBank will lead financing and OpenAI operations, with Masayoshi Son as chairman. The four companies are the initial equity funders. Arm, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle and OpenAI are the initial technology partners.
Construction starts in Texas
President Donald Trump presented the project at the White House on 21 January alongside Son, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Oracle chairman Larry Ellison.
Ellison said the first site was in Abilene, Texas, where ten buildings were under construction. He described each as half a million square feet and said the development would expand to twenty buildings, with further locations to follow. These are construction plans, not a statement that the computing capacity is operational.
Microsoft remains a partner
In a separate announcement the same day, Microsoft said it had approved OpenAI building additional capacity, primarily for research and model training.
The arrangement changes exclusivity over new capacity to give Microsoft a right of first refusal. Microsoft said OpenAI had also made a large new Azure commitment, while existing intellectual-property access, revenue sharing and OpenAI API exclusivity on Azure would continue under their contract through 2030.
Stargate adds a new route to computing infrastructure while preserving that commercial relationship. The announcement gives OpenAI more scope to build the capacity needed to train and run its models.
Hero illustration: Sulat, using the official OpenAI and SoftBank marks. Logos remain the trademarks of their respective owners.
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