President Donald Trump announces project Stargate alongisde Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, Softbank … [+] CEO Masayoshi Son and Open AI CEO Sam Altman at the White House on Jan. 21, 2025.
JIM WATSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
One among the flurry of announcements emerging from the White House this week is the launch of Stargate, a project that newly empowered President Trump announced Tuesday alongside Larry Ellison, Sam Altman and Masayoshi Son.
The project will entail a joint venture between Oracle, Open AI and Softbank with the promise of investing nearly $500 billion into artificial intelligence infrastructure over the next four years. Other partners also include Nvidia, Microsoft and ARM— companies that have all been paramount to the significant AI boom in recent years.
Exact details around the project, the plans and the vision forward are yet to be announced. President Trump explained that one of the primary goals of the project is to build data centers and the means to generate the copious amounts of energy that will be required for AI advancements: “What we want to do is we want to keep it in this country…China is a competitor, others are competitors. We want to be in this country, and we’re making it available. I’m gonna help a lot through emergency declarations, because we have an emergency, we have to get this stuff built. So they have to produce a lot of electricity. And we’ll make it possible for them to get this production done easily, at their own plants if they want.”
The OpenAI press release further explains that the project is crucial to maintaining “American leadership in AI” and will create hundreds of thousands of American jobs; with an initial commitment by the parties of $100 billion, Softbank has been listed as having financial responsibility and OpenAI will have operational responsibility. “All of us look forward to continuing to build and develop AI—and in particular AGI—for the benefit of all of humanity. We believe that this new step is critical on the path, and will enable creative people to figure out how to use AI to elevate humanity,” states OpenAI.
Oracle’s involvement in this project will also be significant, especially given its deep rooted knowledge and experience with data centers and enterprise analytics. Larry Ellison, founder and chairman of the company, ecstatically mentioned during the press conference that construction has already started on some of the data centers in Abilene, Texas, which will reportedly be the first location for the initiative. Furthermore, Ellison explained that one of the primary pieces that the team is already working on is developing tools for early cancer detection by using AI to analyze blood tests: “cancer diagnosis using AI has the promise of just being a simple blood test.”
Ellison’s deep-rooted interest in healthcare is certainly not new. Oracle has made its commitment to redefining healthcare evident numerous times, most notably through its purchase of famed EHR company Cerner for nearly $28 billion a few years ago. More recently, the company announced that it would be shifting its headquarters to Nashville, a city known for its investments in the healthcare industry and technology.
Other partners in the joint venture are also equally ramping up their work in healthcare. Both Microsoft and Nvidia have made it clear that healthcare is among their top priorities, especially with regards to artificial intelligence technology. Certainly, given these partners’ individual interests in healthcare and joint efforts, this new venture will revolutionize the sector, especially as the field is increasingly embracing artificial intelligence tools to alleviate administrative burdens, improve workflows and further develop precision therapies and diagnostics.
2024 witnessed billions of dollars being poured into the AI race. In fact, the competition in this arena has never been more stiff, as Stargate is just one of many projects that are emphasizing the dire need to build infrastructure to support AI advancements. For example, AWS announced earlier this month that it plans to invest nearly $11 billion in Georgia to expand data center infrastructure as a means to support its AI and cloud computing work. Congruently, Meta has announced its plans to invest $10 billion for an AI data center in Louisiana, and Elon Musk has similarly announced his plans to ramp up xAI’s work in Memphis.
More details around Stargate will undoubtedly emerge in the coming weeks as plans are further ironed out. One thing is certain, however: the prospect of American ingenuity and leadership in AI is assuredly promising — as long as the present momentum is fully harnessed and a continued commitment to success is staunchly maintained.
