US launches new AI race with Stargate Project
Plan to raise US$500 billion to dramatically scale up AI infrastructure.
AI is the new space race, and "Stargate" will be backed by half a trillion dollars to build all the data centres needed in the U.S. to win.
On Tuesday, OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle announced the Stargate Project, a joint venture to dramatically scale up AI infrastructure in the United States.
Project Stargate
Announced at a White House briefing, the objective of Stargate is to build “the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of AI."
- Investment of US$500 billion over 4 years.
- US$100 billion to be deployed 'immediately.'
- 10 data centres already under construction in Texas.
- Could scale up to 20 data centre sites by 2029.
Not much is known at the moment, but previous reports have pointed to the development of AI data centre campuses of up to 1GW.
And that's only for one site.
Pulling further ahead
To understand the scale, here's some data on a selection of top data centre markets in the world*:
- Seoul: 1,254MW.
- Singapore: 1,443MW.
- Sydney: 1,602MW.
- London: 2,243MW.
- Tokyo: 2,561MW.
- Atlanta: 2,993MW.
- Virginia: 8,660MW.
As you can see, the US is already significantly ahead in terms of data centre deployments.
The concerted effort by Stargate to deploy additional multi-GW sites over 4 years will let it pull much further ahead of everyone else.
*DC Byte 2024 Report
"Low-cost" energy
The traditional barriers to building more data centres are power and water. The latter could be the reason why Stargate didn't start in Virginia, which currently faces significant water challenges.
Assuming adequate water, the other critical resource for operating data centres is electricity. And this is where the U.S. will go all out to bolster its energy production.
In fact, President Trump plans to declare a national energy emergency for the authority to rapidly approve new oil, gas, and electricity projects.
"We will drill, baby, drill," said Trump in his inauguration speech on Monday.
The idea? Unleash American energy to support the expected AI boom. Because winning at AI is all that matters.
