WASHINGTON — Rounding out his first full day back in the White House, President Donald Trump announced the formation of a new multibillion-dollar project, dubbed Stargate, aimed at bolstering artificial intelligence infrastructure in America.
“Beginning immediately, Stargate will be building the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of advancements in AI,” Trump declared in the White House's Roosevelt Room on Tuesday.
The three companies joining the venture – Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank – are initially putting $100 billion behind the effort and will continue to invest, potentially up to $500 billion, over the next four years. It is expected to create more than 100,000 jobs in the U.S., said Trump, who was joined by Oracle’s Larry Ellison, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son to make the announcement.
“So put that name down in your books because I think you're going to hear a lot about it in the future,” Trump said of the project.
Speaking after Trump, Ellison noted that the first data centers stemming from the project are already under construction in Texas and will expand beyond the initial area going forward. The AP reported the project goes back to 2024.
He touted the potential benefits to the lives of Americans from advancements in AI that will be aided through the project, particularly pointing to how the technology can be used to help doctors better understand their patients' electronic health plans and therefore be able to provide better health care.
Trump stressed the significance of ensuring that the U.S. is leading the way in developments in the rapidly evolving field as opposed to foreign competitors, specifically China, and lauded his role in bringing the effort into fruition.
“This monumental undertaking is a resounding declaration of confidence in America's potential under a new president,” Trump said.
Son, the CEO of Japanese technology group SoftBank, who joined Trump at his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago last month following his election to announce $100 billion in U.S. projects, said the effort would not have happened without the now-president’s November election victory. He quipped how Trump asked him to invest $200 billion rather than $100 billion when they appeared together at Mar-a-Lago last month.
“Now, I [came] back with 500 [billion dollars] because this is – as you [said] yesterday – this is the beginning of a golden age of America,” Son added, referencing Trump’s declaration during his inaugural address on Monday.
Altman, whose testimony in front of a Senate panel in 2023 contributed to a surge in interest in the technology in Washington that year, told Trump the companies “wouldn't be able to do this without you.”
Former President Joe Biden, who handed over power to Trump on Monday, put a significant emphasis on the growing field and similarly warned about the risks of China leading the way rather than the U.S. Days before leaving office, Biden signed an order pushing agencies to ramp up development of AI infrastructure on government land.
As part of a series of executive orders signed in the hours after his inauguration on Monday, however, Trump repealed a separate Biden-era action on the topic.
