- President Trump announced a private sector AI infrastructure investment of up to $500 billion.
- OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank will work together to create a venture named Stargate.
- The US aims to maintain AI leadership against China as geopolitical stakes remain high.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a private sector investment of up to $500 billion for artificial intelligence infrastructure across the country.
OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank will work together to create a venture named Stargate, with the president calling it “the largest AI infrastructure project in history” while touting the role of the US in leading the effort.
“Together these world-leading technology giants are announcing the formation of Stargate … a new American company that will invest $500 billion at least in AI infrastructure in the United States,” he said.
“Put that name down in your books, because I think you’re going to hear a lot about it,” he added.
Trump said the venture would create more than 100,000 American jobs, with the investment set to be made over the next four years.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, and SoftBank chief executive Masayoshi Son attended the White House announcement.
Altman, in his remarks, said he was “thrilled” by the venture and said it’ll be the “most important project of this era.”
“The fact that we get to do this in the United States is just wonderful,” he said. “I believe that as this technology progresses, we will see diseases get cured at an unprecedented rate.”
And Ellison, at the White House, described Stargate as a “very exciting program for Oracle to be a part of.”
AI is energy-hungry
For foundation models to keep improving, companies that use them — like OpenAI and Anthropic — need lots of fuel.
That fuel comes in the form of chips, energy, and talent, and the Trump administration’s policies on each stand to shape the future of computing, potentially creating winners and losers along the way.
The stakes are high. Growing AI in America isn’t just a money-maker, it’s a geopolitical card played against the other big global tech player: China.
Trump on AI
Trump on Monday revoked the Biden Administration’s Executive Order on AI from October 2023. The order pushed for greater transparency from large companies developing and using AI.
After winning the 2024 presidential election, Trump appointed a new AI and cryptocurrency czar in venture capitalist David Sacks.
In his first term as president, Trump issued an executive order focused on AI leadership and non-regulatory approaches to expanding and maintaining it.
Chips
In his final weeks in office, President Joe Biden’s Department of Commerce published new, sweeping export restrictions on the kind of semiconductors required for AI.
The regulations, set to go into effect early in Trump’s second term, would restrict and cap the amount of computing power companies can amass in most countries outside a list of 18 allies.
If maintained by the Trump administration, the impact of these changes will likely be to concentrate AI data centers in the US.
Last week, Biden signed an executive order to grant federal sites to construct data centers and “clean energy.”
Talent
The two ways AI companies acquire game-changing talent are in question as the US transitions from Biden to Trump.
The first is mergers and acquisitions. Nvidia, along with Microsoft and OpenAI, are the subject of a Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission investigation into possible antitrust violations.
The scrutiny created a cooling effect across the AI ecosystem. Trump’s anti-regulation tendencies suggest a more open field for mergers and acquisitions in his term.
The second factor impacting the availability of AI talent in the US is the H-1B visa program. In recent weeks, there has been some disagreement within Trump’s party regarding the program, which is designed to facilitate the immigration of skilled workers to the US.
Energy and data centers
AI also needs chips, but assuring an ample supply of those is for naught without enough energy to run the data centers. Since AI chips are hungrier than traditional computer chips, power is the most important limiting factor to the industry’s growth.
“They have to produce a lot of electricity,” the president said on Tuesday. “And we’ll make it possible for them to get this production done easily, at their own plants if they want.”
Trump’s views on energy production and the climate crisis differ greatly from Biden’s. The new president has long focused on continuing American leadership in fossil fuel production.
