Shortly after beginning his second presidential term, US President Donald Trump stood in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in January, flanked by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.
Together, they announced a new vision for America’s role in artificial intelligence: a $500 billion public-private infrastructure initiative known as Stargate. At the heart of this initiative is a sprawling new data center under construction in Abilene, Texas, an ambitious project meant to power the next generation of AI.
Here are 10 key details about Stargate’s first site
1. The massive $500 billion AI project kicks off in Texas
Abilene, a quiet West Texas city better known for oil rigs and cattle ranches, is now the launchpad for what could be the biggest AI infrastructure project in America. The first Stargate AI data center, a joint effort by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, is rising on a 900-acre property west of Dallas.
2. The players: OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, and Crusoe
Stargate is a collaboration involving OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, with support from Trump.
Each partner contributes distinct capabilities. OpenAI will operate the center and serve as its main customer. Oracle is leasing the site and providing server infrastructure. SoftBank is handling capital investment.
The physical buildout is led by Crusoe, a Denver-based infrastructure startup focused on AI compute. “I’ve never built anything of this scale,” said Chase Lochmiller, CEO of Crusoe, in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.
3. $15 billion and counting
According to The Wall Street Journal, Crusoe Energy, which is tasked with constructing the site, has secured $11.6 billion in new capital, bringing the total investment in the Abilene data center to approximately $15 billion.
The campus is set to grow from two to eight buildings, each filled with advanced AI chips. Each building will reportedly house up to 50,000 Nvidia Blackwell processors, engineered to train advanced AI models.
4. The power behind the power: Stargate built its own gas plant
A significant challenge for a facility of this magnitude is energy. The Abilene site is expected to require 1.2 gigawatts — enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes. To meet this demand, Crusoe and its partners are building an on-site natural gas power plant to secure uninterrupted electricity.
“One of the things that really surprised me… was just how many things feed into the mainline,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an interview.
5. A boon for Abilene
Altman said the city’s flexibility on energy and infrastructure made it an ideal first location. Abilene’s local government offered major tax incentives, and the city has committed to supporting the project’s water needs, which are lower than usual, thanks to a cooling system that recycles liquid.
“It will impact the rest of the economy — our restaurants, our home builders — with that many new people coming in and taking these jobs,” Abilene Mayor Weldon Hurt said.
While large data centers typically yield few permanent roles, Crusoe has committed to creating 357 full-time roles after construction. The bigger win may be the ripple effect for local businesses and the attention Abilene is suddenly getting from investors, developers, and tech vendors.
6. Microsoft is sidelined but not shut out
OpenAI’s primary cloud partner has been Microsoft. But the Stargate project marks a shift. Even Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff chimed in on X, saying Stargate marked the end of the “honeymoon” between OpenAI and Microsoft.
In January, OpenAI revised its contract with Microsoft, allowing partnerships with other providers as long as Microsoft retained first-refusal rights.
While Microsoft is not financially backing Stargate, it remains listed as a technology partner. Meanwhile, Oracle will lease the Abilene facility and manage the servers.
7. Critics call it ‘chaotic’ and ‘fake’
Not everyone believes Stargate can deliver on its ambitious promises. Elon Musk called it “fake,” while Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, one of the researchers behind the AI scaling theory that inspired Stargate, dismissed the effort as “chaotic.”
Still, Altman remains confident: “We need more compute and more capital,” he says.“ We want to have access to a lot of the machinery to make AI and run AI.”
8. Speed is the name of the game
Crusoe began construction in June 2024. The first two buildings are expected to go live in the first half of 2025. The second phase — six additional buildings — began in March 2025 and is expected to be operational by mid-2026.
“We’re trying to deliver on the fastest schedule that a 100-megawatt-or-greater data center has ever been built,” Lochmiller told reporters.
9. The name ‘Stargate’ isn’t just marketing
Altman said the name “Stargate” was inspired by an early OpenAI data center design that resembled the sci-fi portal from the 1994 film. “The hardest part was figuring out what the shape of the deal should be,” he said, referring to the entity’s structure.
10. Next stops: Amarillo, Oregon, and beyond
If successful in Abilene, the Stargate model could be replicated across the U.S. Crusoe is eyeing Amarillo, Texas, for the next site. OpenAI has also scouted Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Internationally, a separate AI data center in Abu Dhabi is in development, though it will not operate under the Stargate LLC entity.