Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk cast doubt on the ambitious $500 billion Stargate project on Wednesday, hours after its announcement, saying lead investor SoftBank Group (OTC: SFTBY) (OTC: SFTBF) has “well under $10 billion secured.”
What happened: The project, unveiled Tuesday during a briefing at the White House in the presence of the president Donald Trumprepresents a joint venture between OpenAISoftBank and Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) to establish a massive artificial intelligence infrastructure across the United States.
“They don’t really have any money,” Musk said.
“SoftBank got way less than $10 billion. I have it on good authority.
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During the briefing, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison highlighted the project’s applications in healthcare, including an AI-based system capable of delivering personalized cancer vaccines within 48 hours.
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Why it matters: The initiative plans to immediately deploy $100 billion, starting with a 500,000 square foot data center in Abilene, Texas. Nine additional facilities are planned, with potential expansion to 20 sites.
Technology partners Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), and Arm Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARM) saw its shares rise following the news. NVIDIA rose 3.95% to $143.15, while Arm jumped 8.94% to $162.60.
OpenAI, retaining operational responsibility while SoftBank handles the financial aspects, said the project will “ensure American leadership in AI” and “create hundreds of thousands of American jobs.” SoftBank Son Masayoshi will be its president.
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