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Stargate, a massive artificial intelligence infrastructure project announced by Donald Trump this week, will exclusively serve ChatGPT maker OpenAI, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company planned to spend $100 billion on Great technology infrastructure projects, the amount of which could reach $500 billion over the next four years, OpenAI and SoftBank, Stargate’s two main backers, announced on Tuesday. Oracle and Abu Dhabi state AI fund MGX are also founding partners.
Asset welcomed the initiative supported by SoftBank Tuesday at a White House event attended by OpenAI chief Sam Altman and other tech executives as “a resounding statement of confidence in America’s potential under the leadership of a new president.
Despite this high-profile announcement, Stargate has yet to secure the funding it needs, will receive no government funding, and will only be used to OpenAI once completed, the people familiar with the project said.
“The intention is not to become a data center provider for the world, but for OpenAI,” said one of the people interviewed.
Another person close to the project said the plan was far from fully developed: “They haven’t figured out the structure, they haven’t found the financing, they don’t have the money committed.” »
SoftBank and OpenAI intend to contribute more than $15 billion each for the project. The companies hope to raise a combination of equity from their existing backers and debt, which will be used to finance Stargate. Tokyo-based SoftBank will also inject existing funds into Stargate, according to one of the sources.
OpenAI and SoftBank declined to comment.
Altman has spent more than a year working on improving OpenAI’s access to data and computing power, a bottleneck he says must be overcome if the company is to reach its goal of creating AI capable of outperforming humans in most cognitive skills, thereby supplanting them in the job market. and pushing the boundaries of scientific research.
This meant looking beyond the exclusive relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft. The group, which invested $13 billion in OpenAI and is entitled to nearly half of the profits from the start-up’s for-profit subsidiary, provides technology support to Stargate, but not capital.
Microsoft launched its own $30 billion AI infrastructure fund with fund manager BlackRock in September last year, and on Wednesday Chief Executive Satya Nadella said his company would spend $80 billion on infrastructure this year, independent of Stargate.
Altman had been speaking to SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son for two years about AI projects, including a new AI deviceaccording to people familiar with the discussions.
SoftBank also invested in OpenAI in a $6.6 billion fundraising round in October that valued the startup at $157 billion, and the Financial Times reported that the Japanese group planning to buy an additional one $1.5 billion worth of stock in the company in November. Son and Altman began having detailed discussions about Stargate in the months leading up to this week’s announcement, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
While Altman’s infrastructure plans had been in the works for more than a year, “the idea of announcing them to the White House was not in the works for (that long),” according to a person with knowledge of the project .
“There is a real intention to do it, but the details have not been worked out,” said another person involved in the project. “People want to do spectacular things in the first week of Trump taking office. »
Stargate is incorporated in Delaware, with OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX each taking an ownership stake in the company. The group will appoint an independent chief executive and board of directors, according to people with knowledge of the plans.
The company would be divided into an operating unit, responsible for building and managing data centers and led by OpenAI, and a unit responsible for raising capital, led by SoftBank, a person familiar with the project said.
Work is already underway on an initial installation in Abilene, Texas.
Data center startup Crusoe has been building this facility for Oracle since June 2023. Crusoe secured $3.4 billion in funding from Blue Owl in October to help fund its development. Oracle is expected to buy about $7 billion worth of chips to power the Texas site and will provide that computing power to Microsoft, which will use it to power OpenAI.
Additional reporting by David Keohane in Tokyo and Stephen Morris in Davos