Much like former US President Franklin D Roosevelt’s Manhattan Project in 1942, which reshaped global power by accelerating the nuclear arms race, US President Donald Trump has paved the way for similar progress in AI.
On his first full day in office, Trump secured $3 trillion in investments – a move aimed at shifting the balance of technological dominance away from China and into the US with the launch of The Stargate Project.
This $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative is backed by tech titans like Oracle CTO Larry Ellison, SoftBank CEO and The Stargate Project chairman Masayoshi Son, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The message is clear: America is betting big on AI, and it’s moving fast.
“This is the beginning of the Golden Age of America,” declared Son, as SoftBank doubled down on its commitment and pushed its investment from an initial $100 billion to an unprecedented $500 billion.
As AI prepares to transform industries at breakneck speed, Altman highlighted the stakes, saying, “We will see diseases get cured at an unprecedented rate.” He reinforced the idea that AI will not only disrupt economies but also redefine human longevity.
Seizing the moment, Trump framed the urgency of the initiative. “We’re going to help a lot through emergency declarations because we have an emergency,” he said while echoing the wartime mobilisation strategies of the 1940s.
In what could be a defining geopolitical move, he made it clear that this isn’t just about innovation, it’s also about dominance. “This is money that normally would have gone to China.”
Breaking Down Stargate – Inside the World’s Biggest AI Project Ever
Trump said that following his return to power, the US saw $3 trillion in investments, with around $6 trillion to $7 trillion of additional investments expected in the upcoming weeks. He acknowledged that China is a key competitor.
Notably, OpenAI recently published an Economic Blueprint, which cautioned that the US risks losing an estimated $175 billion in global investment in AI projects to China-backed initiatives.
The initial equity funders include SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX. SoftBank holds financial responsibility, while OpenAI leads operational efforts. Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI are listed as key technology partners.
An initial investment of $100 billion will be deployed immediately. This initiative is expected to reinforce US leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and contribute to global economic growth. The project focuses on fortifying national security measures for the US and its global partners.
“Stargate will invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the US, creating over 1,00,000 American jobs almost immediately,” Trump said.
“This investment not only supports the re-industrialisation of the US but also establishes a critical strategic capability for protecting national security,” Son said.
“The first of them (data centres) are under construction in Texas. Each building is half a million square feet. There are 10 buildings currently being built, but that will expand to 20…other locations,” said Ellison.
Construction has already begun in Texas, with additional sites being evaluated across the country. Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will collaborate to build and operate the computing system. This partnership extends an established collaboration between OpenAI and NVIDIA since 2016 and a newer relationship with Oracle.
Altman has touted Stargate as the “most important project of this era”. Notably, in the upcoming weeks, Altman will announce a next-level development that unleashes PhD-level super-agents to do complex human tasks.
Altman, currently in Washington for the inauguration, has arranged a private briefing with US government officials on January 30 to discuss the economic benefits of AI.
“This is on the scale of the Apollo Program and Manhattan Project when measured as a fraction of GDP. This kind of investment only happens when the science is carefully vetted and people believe it will succeed and be completely transformative. I agree [that] it’s the right time,” Noam Brown, AI researcher at OpenAI, said.
That explains why one of the godfathers of AI, Yoshua Bengio, recently warned about the potential risks associated with the development of AGI, including the possibility of data centres becoming military targets.
In the latest episode of the podcast Machine Learning Street Talk, Bengio stressed the importance of proactive measures to address associated risks while acknowledging that AGI might still be years away. “Data centres are going to become a military asset when they can run AGI,” Bengio said, drawing parallels to the development of nuclear weapons.
Oracle’s Take on Stargate
Ellison said that healthcare is one of the most exciting sectors in which the company is working with AI. “Using AI, you can do early cancer detection with a blood test, and once we gene sequence that cancer tumour, you can then vaccinate the person [and] design a vaccine for every individual person to vaccinate them against that cancer,” he said.
He added that mRNA vaccines can be made robotically using AI in about 48 hours. “This is the promise of AI and the promise of the future.”
Similarly, Altman believes that as technology progresses, diseases will be cured at an unprecedented rate. “We will be amazed at how quickly we’re curing…cancer…and heart disease.”
What Does Musk Have to Say?
The Stargate Project notably does not include Elon Musk’s xAI or cloud platform AWS.
Taking a dig at OpenAI’s new initiative, Musk said, “They don’t actually have the money.” “SoftBank has well under $10 billion secured. I have that on good authority,” he added.
The project builds on OpenAI’s existing partnership with Microsoft. OpenAI will continue using Azure to train leading AI models and deliver products.
“This additional compute capability is essential as we progress in our work with Microsoft and other partners,” OpenAI said.
Moreover, Microsoft said it is no longer OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider. Instead, it is moving to “a model where Microsoft has a right of first refusal” over where OpenAI runs in the cloud.
Altman clarified on X that Microsoft remains a crucial partner for the company. In response to a post claiming “OpenAI and Microsoft are done”, he replied, “Absolutely not! Very important and huge partnership for a long time to come. We just need more compute.”
