The US president said the project would be the largest artificial intelligence infrastructure project in history “by far”.

US President Donald Trump announced a $500 billion joint venture with Texas technology company Oracle, Japan’s SoftBank and ChatGPT maker OpenAI to advance artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Trump made the announcement at a White House event on Tuesday, also attended by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle CTO Larry Ellison.

Trump said the joint venture would be the largest artificial intelligence infrastructure project in history “by far” and represented his new administration’s “unwavering confidence in America’s potential.”

“This is all happening right here in the United States. As you know, there’s a lot of competition in artificial intelligence and other things, and they’re getting to the highest level,” Trump said.

Shares of Tokyo-based SoftBank Group surged more than 8% on Wednesday after the news was announced.

The three companies will initially invest $100 billion in the so-called Stargate joint venture, growing to $500 billion over the next four years.

Trump said the funding would be used to build “huge data centers” and other infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence, helping to secure the technology’s future.

“What we want to do is keep it in this country,” Trump said. “China is a competitor, other countries are competitors, and we want it in this country.”

The project will be led by SoftBank and Open AI, according to a statement from OpenAI. SoftBank’s son will serve as chairman.

Trump’s announcement came a day after he revoked an executive order by former U.S. President Joe Biden that set out safety guidelines for artificial intelligence development.

Among other provisions, the rules require companies to share safety testing results with the U.S. government.

Following Trump’s executive order, Stargate and other U.S. artificial intelligence projects will no longer be subject to national development guidelines, although states may still impose restrictions.

In a brief speech on Tuesday, Son said Stargate would be “the beginning of our golden age.”

According to Open AI, Stargate will also attract some of the top U.S. technology companies to join.

SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and MGX will serve as equity contributors, while Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle and OpenAI are “key initial technology partners,” the company said in a statement from X.

“Construction is currently underway, starting in Texas, and we are evaluating potential sites for additional campuses across the country as we finalize final agreements,” Open AI said, promising that Stargate will “not only support the reindustrialization of America. “Countries also provide strategic capabilities to protect the national security of the United States and its allies.”