A recent report indicates that there are plans to invest $100 billion into U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure as part of the much-discussed Stargate project.
Sam Altman, who is the CEO of Japan-based SoftBank and a co-founder of OpenAI, revealed this during a briefing at the White House shortly after Trump’s inauguration. He mentioned ambition to escalate this amount to $500 billion over the next four years.
Early discussions seem to have involved a number of lenders and alternative asset managers, including big names like Mizuho, JPMorgan, Apollo Global Management, and Brookfield Asset Management.
Yet, the transaction is facing delays. Concerns about sudden tariffs and fears of an economic downturn appear to be steering investors away from costly data center initiatives, according to sources familiar with the situation.
SoftBank and OpenAI have not responded to requests for comments on this matter.
According to a TD Cowen analysis, import taxes might increase the expenses of data center expansions by approximately 5% to 15%.
During his time in office, Trump promoted Stargate as a significant influx of investment in the U.S. and indicated that the project aims to establish up to 20 large data centers across the country.
SoftBank, which is overseeing the fundraising for Stargate, mentioned that it has assembled a team of 20 to 30 individuals to advance the project, with backing from Oracle and MGX.
Meanwhile, China’s Deepseek AI model claims it managed to launch with relatively minimal time and resources, which has left some on Wall Street questioning the viability of such a multi-million-dollar data center undertaking.
There have been updates about Stargate stemming from plans prior to SoftBank’s entrance into the project.
Recently, Altman shared insights during a congressional hearing about his visit to the first datacenter site for the venture located in Abilene, Texas.
He noted that this facility is being developed by Oracle and is set to be “the world’s largest AI training facility.”
However, Altman and OpenAI are dealing with their own set of challenges, particularly threats of legal action from Elon Musk regarding the controversial decision to transition the company into a for-profit model.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI but later distanced himself from the organization, has attempted to halt OpenAI’s restructuring and even made an unsolicited takeover offer valued at $97.4 billion.
Last week, OpenAI disclosed that it would be abandoning its plans to switch from nonprofit to for-profit structure.
