OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank announced on Tuesday the construction of five additional data centers across the United States under the $500 billion Stargate AI infrastructure initiative. The new sites will be located in Shackelford County, Texas; Doña Ana County, New Mexico; Lordstown, Ohio; Milam County, Texas; and an undisclosed location in the Midwest.
Announcing The Stargate Project
The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately. This infrastructure will secure…
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 21, 2025
The expansion marks a significant step toward meeting Stargate’s 10-gigawatt compute commitment by 2025, which the companies say is now likely to be achieved ahead of schedule.
Meeting the Growing Compute Crunch
The latest announcement comes as the demand for computing power to train and run advanced artificial intelligence continues to surge. OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman emphasized that AI can only fulfill its potential “if we build the compute to power it,” while OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar underscored the shortage of available compute resources.
Progress at our datacenter in Abilene. Fun to visit yesterday! pic.twitter.com/W22ssjWstW
— Sam Altman (@sama) September 24, 2025
“What we see today is a massive compute crunch,” Friar said in an interview. “There’s not enough compute to do all the things that AI can do.”
The new sites will add to existing operations in Abilene, Texas, where one building is already online and another nearing completion. That campus alone has the potential to surpass a gigawatt of capacity—enough to power more than 750,000 U.S. homes.
A High-Stakes Partnership
Oracle is leasing and equipping much of the infrastructure, while SoftBank is contributing financing. Nvidia, which supplies the high-performance graphics chips powering AI models, recently entered into an equity investment deal with OpenAI worth an estimated $500 billion in future data center construction. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang reportedly engaged directly with Altman in last-minute negotiations to secure the partnership.
Although suppliers like Nvidia are investing directly into projects that will also rely on their hardware, OpenAI maintains that the model reflects the kind of bold infrastructure spending historically required during periods of rapid technological change.
Read More: OpenAI buys Ive startup in $6.5 billion AI hardware push
“When the internet was getting started, people kept saying we were overbuilding,” Friar noted. “Look where we are today.”
Political and Economic Weight
The Stargate project was first unveiled at the White House in January alongside President Donald Trump, who has since framed AI as both a national security imperative and an economic driver. The partnership is expected to employ more than 6,000 construction workers daily and create 1,700 long-term jobs.
In a paper released Tuesday, OpenAI argued that its infrastructure buildout could reshape the U.S. power grid through new technologies and strengthen America’s global technological influence.
Powering the Future of AI
The question of energy supply remains central to the Stargate initiative. OpenAI executives have discussed the potential role of nuclear power, while also weighing renewable energy and grid-based solutions. With nearly 17 gigawatts of new compute capacity now planned, the buildout represents one of the largest infrastructure undertakings in U.S. history.
“This is what it takes to deliver AI,” Altman said. “Unlike previous technological revolutions, the infrastructure requirements here are unprecedented—and this is only the beginning.”
GVS South Asia Desk with input from wire agencies.