OpenAI plans to invest roughly US$400 billion to develop five new US data centre sites in partnership with Oracle and SoftBank Group, marking the biggest push yet to fulfil an earlier pledge to spend a half-trillion dollars on artificial intelligence infrastructure in the country.
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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 centre branded as part of Stargate, the joint AI infrastructure initiative.
The expansion brings the companies significantly closer to their goal of investing US$500 billion in domestic data centres 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.
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Three of the new sites – in Shackelford County, Texas; Dona Ana County, New Mexico; and an undisclosed location in the Midwest – will be developed in partnership with Oracle for more than 5.5GW of total capacity, including an additional 600 megawatt expansion at a site near the original Abilene location. OpenAI previously entered an agreement with Oracle in July to develop up to 4.5 gigawatts of additional Stargate capacity, representing about US$300 billion of the newly announced US$400 billion commitment.