OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank Announce Five New U.S. Stargate AI Data Centers
Executive Summary
OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank are significantly expanding their "Stargate" AI infrastructure platform with the addition of five new U.S. data center sites. This expansion brings the project's total planned capacity to nearly 7 gigawatts and investment to over $400 billion. The accelerated development puts the initiative on track to meet its initial $500 billion, 10-gigawatt commitment by the end of 2025, ahead of schedule, to secure the massive compute power required for future AI breakthroughs.
Key Takeaways
* Initiative Name: Stargate, OpenAI’s AI infrastructure platform.
* New Sites: Five new U.S. locations announced: Shackelford County, TX; Doña Ana County, NM; Lordstown, OH; Milam County, TX; and an unnamed Midwest site.
* Capacity Expansion: The new sites, along with an expansion in Abilene, TX, add nearly 7 gigawatts of planned capacity to the Stargate project.
* Accelerated Investment: Total investment now exceeds $400 billion, putting the project on a clear path to secure its full $500 billion, 10-gigawatt goal by the end of 2025.
* Key Partnerships:
* Oracle: Developing sites delivering over 5.5 gigawatts of capacity, representing a partnership value exceeding $300 billion over five years. The flagship Abilene site is already operational on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
* SoftBank: Developing two sites scaling to 1.5 gigawatts, utilizing an advanced data center design and powered infrastructure from SB Energy.
* Technology: The operational flagship site in Abilene has begun using NVIDIA GB200 racks for early AI training and inference workloads.
Strategic Importance
This aggressive, ahead-of-schedule expansion underscores the immense and rapidly growing computational demand for training and deploying next-generation AI models. It represents a move by OpenAI and its partners to build a significant infrastructure advantage, securing a critical part of the AI supply chain to maintain a competitive lead in the industry.