Stargate LLC

The "Stargate" term dates back to 2024, when OpenAI and Microsoft started developing a $100 billion AI supercomputer.^[11][12]

On January 21, 2025, President Donald Trump announced the venture at a White House press conference, accompanied by Sam Altman from OpenAI, Larry Ellison from Oracle and Masayoshi Son from SoftBank.^[4]

Donald Trump called it "the largest AI infrastructure project in history", and he indicated that he would use emergency declarations to expedite the project's development, particularly regarding energy infrastructure.^[13]

Larry Ellison contended that Stargate could lead to the AI-facilitated production of mRNA vaccines against cancer, and that such vaccines could be designed "robotically", or by leveraging AI, "in about 48 hours".^[14]

The venture launched with an initial investment of $100 billion, with plans to increase it to $500 billion by 2029.^[11] Elon Musk, CEO of OpenAI's competitor xAI, said that the venture lacked the financing to meet the promised investment levels. This was later denied by Sam Altman.^[15] Arm CEO Rene Haas stated that the financial backing behind the project is "quite solid".^[16] The Information reported that Softbank and OpenAI have each committed $19 billion of capital to initially fund Stargate and would each hold 40% ownership interest in the joint venture, while Oracle and MGX would each contribute $7 billion, and the remaining funds would be sourced from limited partners and debt financing.^[17][18] According to the Financial Times, the infrastructure being built as part of the project will be exclusive to OpenAI.^[19] It was reported that SoftBank, the main financial backer for Stargate could collect only a 10% equity funding and the remaining would come from debt or debt-like fundings.^[20] Debt has been a common strategy in Son's risky investment strategies.^[21]

Coinciding with the project announcement, Microsoft and OpenAI signed a new agreement that grants Microsoft a right of first refusal on future OpenAI cloud computing capacity, while allowing OpenAI to use other cloud providers if Microsoft declines.^[22]

On April 1, 2025, Softbank announced that its first $10 billion funding was expected to be borrowed from Japanese bank Mizuho and other lenders.^[20]

On April 17, 2025, the Financial Times reported that OpenAI and Oracle weighed a future investment in the United Kingdom as they explored overseas locations to build out AI infrastructure.^[23]

The venture is currently building 10 data centers in Abilene, Texas,^[24][11] and plans to expand to more states and countries like Japan and United Kingdom,^[4][25] with Trump saying that he will use executive orders to help build the venture's infrastructure. The new venture claims that it will create more than 100,000 jobs in the United States. Altman has said that SoftBank will have the "financial responsibility" of the venture and OpenAI will have the "operational responsibility".^[11] Arm, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and OpenAI are the key initial technology partners.^[26]