OpenAI Collaborates with Oracle and SoftBank to Develop Five New Stargate Data Centers

OpenAI has announced plans to establish five new data centers across the United States under the Stargate initiative. This development was revealed on Tuesday, in collaboration with Oracle and SoftBank, raising Stargate’s total capacity to nearly 7 gigawatts—equivalent to the output of seven large-scale nuclear reactors.

“AI differs from the internet in various aspects, notably in the extensive infrastructure it requires,” stated OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during a briefing in Abilene, Texas. He emphasized that the US must not lag behind and highlighted Texas’s “innovative spirit” as a model for scaling “larger, faster, cheaper, and better.”

Three of the new centers, located in Shackelford County, Texas, Doña Ana County, New Mexico, and an undisclosed site in the Midwest, are being developed in partnership with Oracle. This initiative follows an agreement between Oracle and OpenAI from July, which aims to develop up to 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity in the US beyond their current project at the initial Stargate facility in Abilene.

OpenAI asserts that these new data centers, alongside a planned 600 megawatt expansion at the Abilene site, will generate over 25,000 onsite jobs. However, typically, the workforce needed for construction far exceeds the number of employees required for ongoing maintenance.

The other two sites are being spearheaded by OpenAI and SB Energy, a subsidiary of SoftBank that focuses on solar and battery projects. These locations are in Lordstown, Ohio, and Milam County, Texas.

Stargate is one of several significant US technology infrastructure initiatives announced since President Donald Trump took office early this year. OpenAI stated in January that the $500 billion, 10 gigawatt partnership involving the ChatGPT developer, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX aims to “ensure American leadership in AI” and “create hundreds of thousands of American jobs.”

Trump promoted the extensive initiative just two days after returning to the White House, asserting it would accelerate American advancements in artificial intelligence and enhance the US’s capability to compete with China and other nations. In July, he unveiled an AI action plan prioritizing rapid infrastructure development and minimizing red tape as the US seeks to surpass other countries in the pursuit of advanced AI. “We believe we’re in an AI race,” remarked White House AI czar David Sacks at the time. “We want the United States to win that race.”

Initially, OpenAI described Stargate as a “new company” under the chairmanship of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Presently, however, those familiar with the project indicate that it serves as an umbrella brand for all of OpenAI’s data center initiatives—excluding collaborations with Microsoft.

The primary site in Abilene is chiefly owned and operated by Oracle, with OpenAI serving as the main tenant, according to insiders. The project’s buildout, overseen by the data center startup Crusoe, is expected to be finished by mid-2026, sources close to the endeavor report. It is already functioning on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, supporting OpenAI’s training and inference workloads, these sources add.