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President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced investments worth up to $500 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure through a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.
The new entity, Stargate, will begin developing plans necessary for further development of rapidly evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House.
SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Oracle’s Larry Ellison will join Trump for the announcement immediately after his inauguration. Son, a Japan-based billionaire, already pledged in December to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years. The SoftBank boss previously pledged to invest $50 billion ahead of Trump’s first term, including a significant stake in troubled office-sharing company WeWork.
While Trump has used similar announcements to show that his presidency is boosting the economy, there were already expectations of massive construction of data centers and power plants needed for the development of AI, which promises to increase the productivity by automating work, but also the risk of job displacement if poorly implemented.
Last October, financial firm Blackstone estimated that the United States would invest $1 trillion in data centers over five years, with another $1 trillion committed internationally.
These investment estimates suggest that much of the new capital will flow through Stargate, as OpenAI has established itself as an industry leader with the 2022 launch of its ChaptGPT, a chatbot that has captured the public imagination with its ability to answer complex questions and perform basic operations. tasks.
The White House has focused on facilitating the development of new electricity generation in anticipation of the development of AI, knowing that the United States is engaged in a competitive race against China to develop technology of increasingly adopted by companies.
Yet the regulatory outlook for AI remains somewhat uncertain as Trump on Monday rescinded the 2023 order signed by then-President Joe Biden to create security standards and watermarking of AI-generated content. AI, among other objectives, in the hope of putting guardrails on the possibilities of technology. risks to national security and economic well-being.
CBS News first reported that Trump would announce an investment in AI.
Trump supporter Elon Musk, worth more than $400 billion, was an early investor in OpenAI, but has since challenged its move to a for-profit company and launched his own AI company , xAI. Musk is also in charge of the “Department of Government Efficiency” officially created by Trump on Monday with the aim of reducing government spending.
Trump announced in January a $20 billion investment by DAMAC Properties in the United Arab Emirates to build AI-related data centers.
