What is Project Stargate? Why this $500-billion AI initiative could herald a 'platform shift'

OpenAI, SoftBank Group, Abu Dhabi, and Oracle are among the players in a joint venture meant to pour hundreds of billions more into AI data center funding.

This week US President Donald Trump announced a joint venture between OpenAI, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group, and Abu Dhabi's AI-focused sovereign wealth fund MGX, to put as much as $500 billion over multiple years into US data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence.  

Trump appeared at the White House with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Oracle is one of the technology partners for the joint initiative -- dubbed Stargate -- along with Microsoft, ARM Holdings, and Nvidia. 

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The funding, meant to provide "colossal" data centers of 500,000 square feet, comes on top of an enormous amount of capital ...