OpenAI is significantly growing its $500 billion “Stargate” initiative, a massive AI infrastructure project created in collaboration with SoftBank and Oracle.
Yoshimitsu Goto, SoftBank’s CFO, said that lengthy negotiations and site selection have delayed the project.
According to Reuters, despite these obstacles, OpenAI is committed to making sure Stargate can accommodate the next stage of AI development.
The project, first announced at the US White House earlier this year, now encompasses almost all of OpenAI’s work on AI chips and data centres.
Stargate’s expanded scope
Data centre projects that started months before the public announcement are now part of Stargate’s expanded scope. Stargate was initially intended to be a stand-alone business investing in AI infrastructure.
According to OpenAI, the growth is required to satisfy the growing demand for its AI products.
The company intends to pursue new financing strategies to secure chips and construct the required data centre capacity, some of which were created within the last year.
The CEO, Sam Altman, has emphasised the significance of this infrastructure, saying that his ultimate goal is to build a gigawatt of new AI capacity every week.
‘We cannot fall behind in the need to put the infrastructure together to make this revolution happen,” Altman said on Tuesday at a briefing with reporters, tech executives and politicians, including U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, and newly named Oracle co-CEO Clay Magouyrk.
Investors’ concerns
Investors have expressed concerns about a potential bubble resulting from AI’s rapid expansion, despite the general optimism regarding its transformative potential.
Despite acknowledging the risks, Altman maintained his faith in the industry’s long-term prospects.
“There will be a lot of short-term ups and downs, day-to-day quarter, whatever,” he said. “You zoom out enough and the charts look like this,” he said.