Washington: US President Donald Trump announced a USD 500 billion investment in AI infrastructure through a new company, which is being created in partnership with Oracle, SoftBank and Open AI.
The venture, called Stargate, adds to tech companies’ significant investments in US data centres, huge buildings full of servers that provide computing power.
The three companies plan to contribute funds to the venture, which will be open to other investors and start with 10 data centres already under construction in Texas.
“That’s a massive group of talent and money. Together, these world-leading technology giants are announcing the formation of Stargate,” Trump announced Tuesday at a White House news conference along with Oracle Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son and Open AI CEO Sam Altman.
“So, put that name down in your books because I think you’re going to hear a lot about it in the future, a new American company that will invest USD 500 billion at least in AI infrastructure in the United States and very, very quickly, moving very rapidly, creating over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately,” said Trump who was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States January 20.
This monumental undertaking is a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential under a new president, he said.
Trump added, “It will ensure the future of technology. What we want to do is keep it in this country. China is a competitor and others are competitors”.
Trump said Begin immediately, Stargate will be building the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of advancements in AI.
This will include the construction of colossal data centres, very massive structures. “I was in the real estate business, these buildings, these are big beautiful buildings that are going to employ a lot of people and physical campuses in locations currently being scouted nationwide,” Trump added.
Trump stated, “They’re making their choices of locations. I think they have their choice. I’d like to ask Larry, Sam and Masa to say a few words and just talk a little bit about what they’re doing and if you have any questions and then we’ll go into a couple of other subjects also. But this is, to me, a very big thing, a USD 500 billion Stargate project,”.
Ellison said they certainly couldn’t do this without Trump.
Trump added, “It would simply be impossible. AI holds incredible promise for all of us, for every American. We’ve been working with Open AI for a while and with Masa for a while. The data centres are actually under construction,”
Trump said, “The first of them are under construction in Texas. Each building is half a million square feet. There are 10 buildings currently being built, but that will expand to 20, and other locations beyond the Abilene location, which is our first location”.
“The kind of applications that we’re building, to give you an idea, maybe the most charismatic and the one that I think touches us all is electronic health records, not just maintaining electronic health records, but by looking at electronic health records, understanding the condition of doctors better understanding the condition of their patients and being able to provide health care plans that are much better than they otherwise would be. A doctor in Indian River reservation would be able to see how a doctor at Memorial Sloan Kettering would treat the patient, or a doctor at Stanford would treat the patient,” he said.
“This is the beginning of the golden age. We wouldn’t have decided unless you won. And yesterday, we agreed, we signed to make this happen,” SoftBank CEO said, adding that his company would immediately start deploying USD100 billion, to make US500 billion, within the next four years.
Describing this as the most important project of this era, Altman said this will be an exciting project.
“I think we’ll be able to do all of the wonderful things these guys talked about. But the fact that we get to do this in the United States is, I think, wonderful,” he said.
Trump said before the end of his first full business day in Washington in the White House, he has already secured nearly USD 3 trillion of new investments in the United States and probably that’s going to be USD 6 trillion or USD 7 trillion by the end of the week.
Trump said, “Tremendous amounts of money are coming in for many things other than even AI. AI seems to be very hot”.
PTI
