OpenAI will build and open AI infrastructure worth $500 billion in the United States over the next four years with SoftBank. The two entities cooperated to form a new company called the Stargate Project to build AI data centers for the ChatGPT maker, and according to their announcement, it will “ensure America’s leadership in AI” as well as “create hundreds of thousands of American jobs.” SoftBank will finance the project, while OpenAI will manage its operations. Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, will serve as its chairman.

While OpenAI and SoftBank will serve as lead partners in the Stargate Project, there are many other companies involved in the initiative. In addition to OpenAI, Arm, NVIDIA, Oracle and, of course, Microsoft will be its main technology partners. The company’s official announcement says that OpenAI, NVIDIA and Oracle will work together to “build and operate this computing system,” although it doesn’t specify what that means.

As for Microsoft, the company posted a advertisement about its involvement in the project and said it will continue its “strategic partnership” with OpenAI. Microsoft still has the rights to use the OpenAI IP in its products, and the OpenAI API will still run exclusively on Azure. However, it will no longer be OpenAI’s exclusive provider for computing capacity. Whenever OpenAI needs more capacity as its needs grow, Microsoft has a “right of first refusal,” which means the ChatGPT-maker must check it first before working with other parties.

The Stargate Project immediately released $100 billion for the first data center construction, starting with one in Texas. as TechCrunch notes, it was previously reported that OpenAI is in talks with Oracle to lease a data center in Abilene, Texas that will reach nearly one gigawatt of electricity by 2026. It did not mention any other sites, but said it is “evaluating potential” locations across the country.

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