SOFTBANK Group and OpenAI each plan to commit US$19 billion of capital to Stargate, the US$100 billion US artificial intelligence (AI) endeavour President Donald Trump unveiled this week, the Information reported.
The two companies would then both own 40 per cent of Stargate, the tech outlet said, citing comments by chief executive officer Sam Altman to colleagues.
SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, OpenAI’s Altman and Oracle’s Larry Ellison took the wraps off Stargate this week at the White House, saying they would deploy US$100 billion for the construction of data centres and other infrastructure. AI stocks have rallied since Stargate’s emergence, in anticipation of a potential spike in spending on hardware. On Thursday (Jan 23), SoftBank’s shares gained another 6 per cent in Tokyo, building on Wednesday’s 11 per cent gain.
But tech industry players including Elon Musk have questioned the lack of details around the venture and its financing. The xAI founder openly expressed doubt whether companies that joined Trump’s announcement could follow through on their promises.
Altman told colleagues Stargate was like a venture fund, with OpenAI and SoftBank its general partners, the Information said. Oracle and Abu Dhabi-backed MGX round out the roster and would contribute about US$7 billion apiece, the outlet cited the OpenAI chief as saying. The rest of the money would come from limited partners and debt financing.
Trump has made it clear that US leadership in AI is a priority for his administration. He’s signalled a wide-ranging approach towards ensuring that dominance, including pledges to spur private-sector investment by accelerating the permit process and easing other regulations.
But scepticism persists about whether Stargate actually amounts to a dramatic increase from previous plans.
Son visited Mar-a-Lago just last month to announce that SoftBank would spend US$100 billion over the coming presidential term, and Tuesday’s announcement was drawn from that effort, according to a source familiar with the matter. Ellison said some of the data centres considered for the project were already under construction. And OpenAI has outlined plans to invest in AI infrastructure.
Bloomberg previously reported that SoftBank might tap hyperscalers in a project financing scheme and leverage tens of billions of US dollars into hundreds of billions of US dollars. The Japanese tech investor had 3.8 trillion yen (S$32.9 billion) in cash and equivalents on its balance sheet at the end of September. BLOOMBERG
