President Trump joined Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank executives to announce a $500 billion, five-year investment in US artificial intelligence infrastructure dubbed Stargate Project.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joined Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son at a White House event for the joint venture announcement on Tuesday, one day after Trump was sworn into office for his second term as president. The joint venture partners have committed $100 billion initially and then $500 billion over the next four years.
Trump praised the three men for their work. "We're announcing Stargate--put that name down--for new American infrastructure, $500 billion at least in AI infrastructure in the US and creating 100,000 jobs almost immediately."
Trump said the massive private investment will be helped with federal support for emergency presidential declarations impacting, specifically, electricity production. The partners "have to provide a lot of energy and we will make it possible at their plants if they want, for energy generation," Trump said. "That will be incredible."
In a response to a reporter's question, Trump also said he would like to see federal lands opened up for data centers "to make it easy" for investment.
Ellison said the Stargate partnership has already begun creating data centers in Abilene, Texas, with 10 buildings, each at 500,000 square feet, with up to 20 buildings total planned. Stargate is evaluating potential sites across the country for more campuses, OpenAI said in a statement.
Ellison said AI will be transformational, going beyond helping businesses but also helping with cancer research, even to the point of quickly producing anti-cancer vaccines with robots enabled with AI.
Nvidia, Microsoft and Arm join Oracle as key technology partners in Stargate, according to a statement from OpenAI. The initial equity partners are SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and MGX. SoftBank and OpenAI are lead partners with SoftBank in charge of financial responsibility and OpenAI holding operational responsibility. Msayoski Son will serve as chairman.
The three partners at the White House event were asked repeatedly what the practical impact of AI will be. "This is not just for business," Son said. "It will help people's lives." On a Fox interview, Son said that with Trump's support, Stargate will be "bigger" and "happen faster."
Altman said the project will help develop AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). "I"m thrilled to do it in the USA and for AGI, a new industry. We'd not be able to do this without you," Altman said, referring to Trump. "The fact we get to do this in the US is wonderful."
Joe Lonsdale, managing partner of 8VC, said the five components of necessary AI infrastructure start with energy infrastructure at the bottom, then adding chips at the next level, then data centers, and finally software infrastructure and services. “All are important,” he said.
Trump again reiterated he expects to levy tariffs on Mexico and Canada of 25% by Feb. 1. He also said he supports continuation of TikTok if it can be half owned by a US entity. With the US involvement, it is worth $1 trillion, but without the US involvement it is worth nothing, he said.