Trump AI investment with OpenAI, Oracle, Softbank newsthirst.


U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on AI infrastructure, next to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the Roosevelt room at White House in Washington, U.S., January 21, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Carlos Barria | Reuters

President Donald Trump announced a joint venture Tuesday with OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank to invest billions of dollars in artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States.

The project, dubbed Stargate, was unveiled at the White House by Trump, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.

The executives committed to invest an initial $100 billion and up to $500 billion over the next four years in the project, which will be set up as a separate company.

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“What we want to do is we want to keep it in this country,” Trump said of AI, noting that China is a major competitor in the nascent industry.

Stargate’s first joint venture will be to construct data centers in Texas — an effort that is already underway, Ellison said in the Roosevelt Room.

OpenAI later said in an X post that the project “will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.”

Softbank’s Son will be the chairman of Stargate, while semiconductor company Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI will be “the key initial technology partners,” OpenAI said in the post.

Son already announced a four-year, $100-billion AI investment in the United States in December, when he visited then-President-elect Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

At the time, Trump joked that he had pressed Son to bump up his commitment to $200 billion.

“Now I came back with $500 [billion],” Son quipped at the White House Tuesday.

In his remarks, Trump suggested that the $500 billion figure would be separate from Son’s previous pledge.

“The $500 billion Stargate Project comes in addition to a separate pledge, between $100 and $200 billion, from, as we know, from Masa,” Trump said.

— NBC News’ Peter Alexander contributed to this report


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