OpenAI plans to invest roughly $400 billion to develop five new US data center sites in partnership with Oracle Corp. and SoftBank Group Corp. , marking the biggest push yet to fulfill an earlier pledge to spend a half-trillion dollars on artificial intelligence infrastructure in the country.
The new locations, spread across Texas, New Mexico and Ohio, will eventually have a capacity of 7 gigawatts of power, or as much as some cities, the companies said Tuesday. The plans were announced by executives from the three tech firms at a press conference in Abilene, Texas, where OpenAI and Oracle have for months been developing the first data center branded as part of Stargate, the joint AI infrastructure initiative.
The expansion brings the companies significantly closer to their goal of investing $500 billion in domestic data centers and AI infrastructure over the next four years — a pledge made by their top executives in the first days after President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The added facilities are also poised to provide substantially more computing capacity to support OpenAI’s services, including ChatGPT, which is now used by 700 million people weekly.
“We will push on infrastructure as hard as we can because that is what will drive our ability to deliver amazing technology and basic products and services,” OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said at the press conference.