President Trump on Tuesday is expected to announce a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to create at least $100 billion in computing infrastructure to power artificial intelligence, according to two people familiar with the announcement.
The venture, called Stargate, adds to tech companies’ significant investments in U.S. data centers, huge buildings full of servers that provide computing power. It could eventually total as much as $500 billion over four years, said the people. The three companies plan to contribute funds to the venture, which will be open to other investors and start with a first data center in Texas.
The announcement of the joint venture is set to be an early trophy for Mr. Trump, even though the effort to form the venture predates his taking office on Monday. Mr. Trump has promised to accelerate the production of American-made A.I. to compete against China for global leadership in the technology, and on Monday he rolled back an executive order from former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. that imposed standards on safety and other requirements for government use of A.I.
OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman; SoftBank’s chief, Masayoshi Son; and Oracle’s founder, Larry Ellison, will be at the White House announcement with Mr. Trump, the people said.
CBS earlier reported news of the announcement.
OpenAI has long worked on financing its ambitious goals to build data center campuses around the world. This month, the company pitched an economic road map for the new administration that centered on a large-scale plan for U.S. data centers that are used to power A.I. tools like its ChatGPT.
For years, Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s largest investor, provided data center infrastructure needed to power the start-up. But as the ChatGPT maker struggled to get enough computer power from Microsoft, the two companies agreed that OpenAI could seek additional data centers built by Oracle.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit’s claims).
Last year, Mr. Altman began meeting with investors in the United Arab Emirates, computer chip makers in Asia and officials in Washington, proposing that they unite to build new computer chip factories and data centers across the globe.
After officials in Washington expressed concern that a U.S. company was trying to build vital technology in the Middle East, OpenAI focused on building new data centers in the United States.
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