January 22, 2025
3 min read
Here’s What’s in ‘Stargate,’ the $500-Billion Trump-Endorsed Plan to Power U.S. AI
Tech giants are backing a massive effort, announced by President Trump and dubbed the Stargate Project, to add data centers across the U.S.
A power substation near a the LC1 CloudHQ data center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, on Wednesday, March 27, 2024.
Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images
CLIMATEWIRE | President Donald Trump announced an initiative Tuesday for several technology giants to invest at least $500 billion in artificial intelligence and data centers at U.S. locations over four years, a move that could shake up the electricity mix and heat up a technology race with China.
The Stargate Project is a new company with SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and MGX as lead investors. Microsoft and Nvidia are partnering in the project and construction at one site has started at a site in Texas, according to an Open AI press release. Approximately $100 billion is expected to be spent on Stargate “immediately,” the company said.
At the White House, Trump said he would help with Stargate’s developments “a lot” through emergency declarations.
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“We have to get this stuff built .… They have to produce a lot of electricity, and we’ll make it possible for them to get that production done very easily,” Trump said.
“What we want to do is keep [AI infrastructure] in this country. China is a competitor,” added Trump, who appeared at the White House with Softbank’s CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison.
The announcement deepens the influence of large technology companies over the administration, which is…
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