Dive Brief:
- OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle unveiled five new data center sites in Texas, New Mexico, Ohio and the Midwest, which puts the Stargate initiative ahead of schedule to hit its $500 billion, 10-gigawatt goal by the end of 2025, according to a Sept. 23 news release.
- The projects bring Stargate’s pipeline to nearly 7 gigawatts of planned capacity and more than $400 billion in investment, and underscores the scale of artificial intelligence-driven construction. More than 300 sites have been proposed for consideration since January, according to the news release.
- The initiative dovetails with the Trump administration’s efforts to fast-track permitting and boost electricity generation for AI infrastructure. Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk said the company is ramping up its cloud infrastructure footprint “at an unrivaled pace” in the release.
Dive Insight:
The news is a significant development for contractors with work in the AI-infrastructure buildout.
Stargate’s scope has ballooned since its January launch. For contractors, that means a surge in data center construction opportunities, particularly in regions such as Texas where multiple sites are moving forward.
For example, a facility in Milam County, Texas, will provide powered infrastructure for a fast-build data center site, and will be developed in partnership with SB Energy, a SoftBank Group company. That’s in addition to another site in Shackelford County, Texas, which the firm is developing in partnership with Oracle. In Lordstown, Ohio, SoftBank and OpenAI broke ground on an advanced data center design. The project is on track to be operational next year, according to the release.
That speed-to-market will be needed to spur investment in American AI infrastructure. The new Stargate sites will join the flagship campus in Abilene, Texas, which is already up and running, delivering the first Nvidia GB200 racks in June, according to the release.
“AI can only fulfill its promise if we build the compute to power it,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, in the release. “We’re already making historic progress.”
