Stargate Project,

incorporated in Delaware The Delaware General Corporation Law (sometimes abbreviated DGCL), officially the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware (Title 8, Chapter 1 of the Delaware Code), is the statute of the Delaware Code that governs corporate law in the U. ...

as Stargate LLC, is an American multinational

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

(AI) joint venture created by

OpenAI OpenAI, Inc. is an American artificial intelligence (AI) organization founded in December 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. It aims to develop "safe and beneficial" artificial general intelligence (AGI), which it defines ...

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational Investment company, investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services ...

Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...

, and investment firm MGX. The venture plans on investing up to US$500 billion in AI infrastructure in the United States by 2029. It has been planned since 2022 and was formally announced on January 21, 2025, by

United States president The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed For ...

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

. SoftBank's CEO

Masayoshi Son Masayoshi Son (, , born Masayoshi Yasumoto, ; August 11, 1957) is an entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist from Japan. A Zainichi Korean, he is the founder, representative director, corporate officer, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group (SBG ...

is the venture's chairman. It is named after the 1994 film ''Stargate'', in which the stargates were portals to other worlds. Because of its large scale, the program has been compared to the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...

History

The "Stargate" term dates back to 2024, when OpenAI and Microsoft started developing a $100 billion AI

supercomputer A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...

. On January 21, 2025, President Donald Trump announced the venture at a

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

press conference, accompanied by

Sam Altman Samuel Harris Altman (born April 22, 1985) is an American technology entrepreneur, investor, and the chief executive officer of OpenAI since 2019 (he was Removal of Sam Altman from OpenAI, briefly dismissed and reinstated in November 2023). He ...

from

Larry Ellison Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American businessman and entrepreneur who co-founded software company Oracle Corporation. He was Oracle's chief executive officer from 1977 to 2014 and is now its chief technology officer a ...

from

and

from

. Donald Trump called it "the largest AI infrastructure project in history", and he indicated that he would use emergency declarations to expedite the project's development, particularly regarding

energy infrastructure Energy development is the field of activities focused on obtaining sources of energy from natural resources. These activities include the production of renewable, nuclear, and fossil fuel derived sources of energy, and for the recovery and reu ...

. Larry Ellison contended that Stargate could lead to the AI-facilitated production of mRNA vaccines against cancer, and that such vaccines could be designed "robotically", or by leveraging AI, "in about 48 hours". The venture launched with an initial investment of $100 billion, with plans to increase it to $500 billion by 2029.

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

, CEO of OpenAI's competitor xAI, said that the venture lacked the financing to meet the promised investment levels. This was later denied by Sam Altman.

Arm In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between ...

CEO Rene Haas stated that the financial backing behind the project is "quite solid". '' The Information'' reported that Softbank and OpenAI have each committed $19 billion of capital to initially fund Stargate and would each hold 40% ownership interest in the joint venture, while Oracle and MGX would each contribute $7 billion, and the remaining funds would be sourced from

limited partners A limited partnership (LP) is a type of partnership with general partners, who have a right to manage the business, and limited partners, who have no right to manage the business but have only limited liability for its debts. Limited partnership ...

and

debt financing Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money borrowed or otherwise withheld from another party, the creditor. Debt may be owed by a sovereign state or country, local government, company, or an individual. Commer ...

. According to the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'', the infrastructure being built as part of the project will be exclusive to OpenAI. It was reported that SoftBank, the main financial backer for Stargate could collect only a 10% equity funding and the remaining would come from debt or debt-like fundings. Debt has been a common strategy in Son's risky investment strategies. Coinciding with the project announcement,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

and OpenAI signed a new agreement that grants Microsoft a

right of first refusal Right of first refusal (ROFR or RFR) is a contractual right that gives its holder the option to enter a business transaction with the owner of something, according to specified terms, before the owner is entitled to enter into that transactio ...

on future OpenAI cloud computing capacity, while allowing OpenAI to use other cloud providers if Microsoft declines. On April 1, 2025, Softbank announced that its first $10 billion funding was expected to be borrowed from Japanese bank Mizuho and other lenders. On April 17, 2025, the Financial Times reported that OpenAI and Oracle weighed a future investment in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

as they explored overseas locations to build out AI infrastructure. On May 16, 2025, Nvidia,

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...

, and OpenAI announced plans to help build the "UAE Stargate" artificial intelligence data center in

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...

. UAE Stargate is expected to open in 2026. On May 22, 2025,

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. (stylized as JPMorganChase) is an American multinational financial services, finance corporation headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. It is List of largest banks in the United States, the largest ba ...

agreed to lend $2.3 billion to OpenAI and its partners for the Stargate data center projects in Abilene, Texas. The project is being developed by a joint venture involving Blue Owl Capital, Crusoe Energy Systems, and Primary Digital Infrastructure, and is leased to Oracle Corporation.

Structure

The venture is currently building 10

data centers A data center is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer, computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and computer data storage, storage systems. Since IT opera ...

in Abilene,

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, and plans to expand to more states and countries like Japan and the United Arab Emirates, with Trump saying that he will use

executive orders ''Executive Orders'' is a techno-thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and released on July 1, 1996. It picks up immediately where the final events of '' Debt of Honor'' (1994) left off, and features now- U.S. President Jack Ryan as he tries ...

to help build the venture's infrastructure. The new venture claims that it will create more than 100,000 jobs in the United States. Altman has said that

will have the "financial responsibility" of the venture and OpenAI will have the "operational responsibility".

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

, and

are the key initial technology partners. On May 22, 2025 G42,

SoftBank Group is a Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services to customers in a m ...

and

announced a partnership to build Stargate UAE, a data center in the United Arab Emirates.

References

External links

Trump announces the venture

Announcing The Stargate Project
(by OpenAI) {{OpenAI Artificial intelligence companies Larry Ellison Joint ventures Second presidency of Donald Trump OpenAI SoftBank Group Oracle Corporation 2025 in artificial intelligence