OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank Announce Five New AI Data Centers, Advancing $500 Billion Stargate Project

OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank have announced plans to develop five new AI data center sites across the United States as part of their joint Stargate project. This expansion is set to increase the platform's planned capacity to nearly 7 gigawatts and elevate the total investment to over $400 billion within the next three years. The initiative aims to meet the growing demand for AI services and is on track to fulfill the $500 billion, 10-gigawatt commitment announced in January by the end of 2025.

The new data centers will be located in Shackelford County, Texas; Doña Ana County, New Mexico; an undisclosed site in the Midwest; Lordstown, Ohio; and Milam County, Texas. These facilities are expected to create over 25,000 onsite jobs and tens of thousands of additional jobs across the U.S. The selection of these sites followed a comprehensive review of over 300 proposals from more than 30 states.

The flagship Stargate campus in Abilene, Texas, is already operational, with Oracle delivering NVIDIA hardware to the site in June. OpenAI has commenced training and inference workloads using this infrastructure. The companies anticipate that the new sites will further enhance their ability to support AI applications and model training.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized the importance of this expansion, stating, "AI can only fulfill its promise if we build the compute to power it. That compute is the key to ensuring everyone can benefit from AI and to unlocking future breakthroughs." Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk highlighted the collaboration's impact, noting, "Oracle's reliable, scalable, and secure AI infrastructure is helping OpenAI rapidly scale its business. To meet this enormous demand, we continue to expand OCI's footprint at an unrivaled pace to deliver the most performant and cost-effective AI training and inferencing." SoftBank Group Corp. Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son added, "Stargate is harnessing SoftBank's innovative data center design and energy expertise to deliver the scalable compute that powers AI's future. Together with OpenAI, Arm, and our Stargate partners, we are paving the way for a new era where AI advances humanity."

This announcement underscores the companies' commitment to advancing AI infrastructure and supporting the growing needs of AI applications and services.