As announced by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, they will launch five new AI data centers 2025 across the United States as a bold Stargate plan, an initiative designed to draw up to 500 billion dollars of AI investment. This is a logical extension of prior investment announcements made by OpenAI and Oracle, and demonstrates the urgency with which leading technology companies are taking seriously the AI infrastructure aspects of generative AI.
This initiative also indicates that the groundwork for artificial intelligence has become a priority in its own right and that it has emerged as a more significant milestone in AI expansion and global data centers.
Where the AI Data Centers Will Go
New sites will be situated in:
- Shackelford County, Texas (in partnership with Oracle)
- Dona Ana County, New Mexico (in partnership with Oracle)
- An undisclosed site in an undisclosed U.S. Midwest location (in partnership with Oracle)
- Lordstown, Ohio
- Milam County, Texas
OpenAI will serve as operator of the above first three locations in collaboration with Oracle, while SoftBank and its affiliated entity will have the opportunity to collaborate on the last two of the above sites. In addition to the existing projects, including engagements with CoreWeave, the new buildouts are expected to contribute towards a total Stargate plan capacity of nearly 7 gigawatts, and anticipated new AI investment of over 400 billion dollars over the coming three years. The $500 billion Stargate AI project long-range target goal is to achieve a total capacity of 10 gigawatts.
Financing, Scale and Jobs
OpenAI intends to utilize debt financing in order to acquire the chips necessary for the endeavor, which shifts a substantial portion of the financial risk to lenders, as opposed to equity funders.
The initiative has other implications besides infrastructure, with 25,000 onsite jobs anticipated for the newly designated sites. OpenAI Oracle SoftBank AI data centers highlight how technology partnership will play a central role in AI expansion.
OpenAI and its largest supporter, Microsoft, are involved in a larger trend of significant investments in generative AI infrastructure. AI data centers, chip supply chains, and cloud computing systems are becoming competitive fields for technology companies. The AI future with OpenAI and Oracle also reflects their strong commitment to global data centers.
Why It Matters
There are a few reasons why this development is important.
- Computing as the basis of AI: The systems running ChatGPT, Copilot, and image generators require a lot of computing. As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman articulated, AI can only realize its potential when the computing basis for that AI is also scalable.
- Scalability and independence: With its own AI data centers, OpenAI can better manage other factors – latency, cost, and security – while having less reliance on outside vendor clouds. The AI future with OpenAI and Oracle ensures resilience in AI infrastructure.
- National strategy: Both government and private sector priorities view AI infrastructure as a national priority, especially given that competitors like China are moving aggressively in global data centers.
Challenges and Risks
Such an ambitious Stargate plan comes with its own levels of challenge.
- Capital needs: Gigawatt-scale AI data centers can be programmed at billions of the investment level. The debt-financed model reduces some of the stress, but it opens the business to interest rate exposure and additional debt service risks.
- Regulatory scrutiny: Projects like this will, in a fundamental way, attract scrutiny over environmental, data security and national security risks.
- Execution risks: The task of constructing multiple sites and linking that construction across new geographies is a logistical challenge. Timing delays and cost overruns could jeopardize timelines and financial returns. The SoftBank OpenAI Oracle technology collaboration and technology partnership will be key to execution.
The race to drive the next horizon of artificial intelligence is shifting away from the design of models and toward the underlying AI infrastructure. OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank believe ownership and having control of computing capacity at scale will create leaders in artificial intelligence for the next decade. The OpenAI Oracle SoftBank AI data centers under the **$500 billion Stargate AI proje
