# Stargate and the $500 billion data-centre boom

URL: https://ai-pulse.aglaganova.com/blog/stargate-and-the-500-billion-data-centre-boom
Published: 2026-10-09
Author: Roman Aglaganov, Full-stack developer
Category: Industry
Region: North America
Tags: chips, energy

> In January 2025, OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX announced Stargate, a plan to spend up to $500 billion on US AI infrastructure. It is the biggest symbol of an unprecedented building spree.

![Rows of black server racks in a data centre with a raised white floor](https://ai-pulse.aglaganova.com/api/media/file/datacenter-1.jpg)

On 21 January 2025, the day after his inauguration, President Trump stood at the White House with the heads of OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to announce Stargate: a joint venture planning to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the United States over four years, starting with $100 billion straight away.

## What is being built

Stargate is a company, chaired by SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, that builds enormous data centres to train and run OpenAI’s models. The first site is in Abilene, Texas, and more have followed, along with a sister project abroad, Stargate UAE. The name comes from the 1994 science-fiction film, which is either inspiring or slightly ominous, depending on how you remember the plot.

## The wider spree

Stargate is the most dramatic example of a much broader trend. Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta have each been spending tens of billions of dollars a year on data centres, chips and power. The bet is that demand for AI will keep growing fast enough to pay for it all.

## The questions

**Can it be funded?** sums this large depend on investors staying confident, and sceptics have warned about a bubble.

**Can it be powered?** AI data centres need as much electricity as small cities, which is pushing tech companies into the energy business.

**Will demand keep up?** if AI becomes much cheaper to run, as DeepSeek’s efficient models suggested it could, the world may need fewer giant data centres than planned, or, if cheaper AI means much more AI, even more.

## Sources

- [OpenAI: Announcing the Stargate Project](https://openai.com/index/announcing-the-stargate-project/)
- [Stargate LLC (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_LLC)