Stargate is OpenAI's AI-infrastructure mega-project, announced in January 2025 with $500B in committed spending over multiple years across multiple sites. It was structured as a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, MGX (UAE), and Nvidia, with related partners. By April 2026, reporting indicated the joint-venture structure had been abandoned in practice as OpenAI shifted toward large bilateral compute deals.
Structure
The joint venture was led by OpenAI and SoftBank, with Oracle and MGX as primary infrastructure and capital partners. SoftBank's financing was managed through its Vision Fund investment arm, via a 20–30 person team led by Vikas J. Parekh. OpenAI described the goal as a "gigawatt-per-week" AI-infrastructure factory (per Abundant Intelligence (Altman)).
By April 29, 2026, the Financial Times reported that the Stargate joint venture had been abandoned in practice, with OpenAI shifting to large bilateral deals with Oracle, AWS, Microsoft, and SoftBank; a source quoted in the report said "Stargate has now had three or four permutations" (Source: ft.com).
Sites
| Site | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Abilene, TX | Flagship; operational | Up to 400,000 Blackwell chips |
| Stargate UAE | Announced 2025-06 | US-UAE multi-billion-dollar deal; Nvidia, OpenAI, Cisco, Oracle, SoftBank |
| Stargate Norway | Announced 2025-07-31 | |
| 5 new US sites | Announced 2025-09-23 | NYT: "OpenAI to Join Tech Giants in Building 5 New Data Centers in US" |
The Abilene, Texas site is the flagship and operational, with reporting that it could hold up to 400,000 Blackwell chips. Stargate UAE was announced in June 2025 as a US-UAE multi-billion-dollar data-campus deal involving Nvidia, OpenAI, Cisco, Oracle, and SoftBank; as of June 6, 2025 Reuters described the campus deal as "far from finalized." Stargate Norway was announced July 31, 2025. Five additional US data-center sites were announced September 23, 2025, reported by the New York Times under the headline "OpenAI to Join Tech Giants in Building 5 New Data Centers in US."
Partners and compute deals
Nvidia announced a 10 GW / $100B partnership with OpenAI on September 22, 2025. SoftBank's remaining $22.5B investment was greenlit on October 25, 2025 (The Information). Oracle held a $300B OpenAI cloud commitment, and CoreWeave signed an $11.9B contract ahead of its IPO.
On April 30, 2026, OpenAI and Amazon disclosed a $100B compute expansion: an existing $38B multi-year AWS deal was extended by $100B over eight years, and Amazon committed a $50B investment in OpenAI for 2 GW of compute (Source: openai.com).
SoftBank separately disclosed, on April 29, 2026, plans for a US-based AI/robotics data-center company called Roze, targeted for an IPO as early as 2026 at a roughly $100B valuation (Source: ft.com).
Compute capacity and operations
In an April 29, 2026 OpenAI Global Affairs post ("Inside Stargate"), OpenAI stated that 8+ GW of its 10 GW target had been identified for 2029, and that available compute had tripled year-over-year to roughly 1.9 GW in 2025. The post also recorded the Abilene mayor pushing back on water-use criticism of the site (Source: openaiglobalaffairs.substack.com).
Analysis and scrutiny
SemiAnalysis published a "Stargate Data Center Layer Cake" piece on May 24, 2025, a supply-chain decomposition of the infrastructure stack (Source: Raw Sources/SemiAnalysis - Stargate Data Center Layer Cake.md). A November 14, 2025 piece in DCD ("Building Stargate: Talking to OpenAI about its trillion-dollar data center vision") covered OpenAI's data-center plans. Earlier reporting included a May 10, 2025 Washington Post account of Stargate seeking state hosts for a $100B build-out and a May 12, 2025 Bloomberg report of a SoftBank slowdown in financing talks.
Lancium, the power-infrastructure developer behind the Abilene campus, was reported on July 9, 2026 to be in talks with major tech companies to sell a minority stake (Source: theinformation.com). The same day, Floodlight reported that the Abilene campus built 10 gas turbines and 62 diesel generators under minor air permits designed for small emitters — issued without public notice or environmental review — and is seeking 41 more turbines, part of a pattern covering at least 38 Texas data centers since 2024 (Source: route-fifty.com). See AI Environmental Impact.
The Sen. Warren letter (January 28, 2026) scrutinized OpenAI's $1.4T in commitments and framed them as a systemic risk. Grid-capacity context comes from NERC 2025 Long-Term Reliability Assessment (LTRA), which documented 224 GW of peak-demand growth, and from Bain & Company — 6th Annual Global Technology Report (2025), which analyzed a $2T revenue requirement against an $800B gap. A February 5, 2026 TechCrunch report on Elon Musk's interest in orbital data centers was noted as an adjacent framing.
Snapshot
| Date | Item |
|---|---|
| 2026-04-30 | AWS-OpenAI $100B compute expansion: $38B multi-year deal extended by $100B over eight years; Amazon $50B investment in OpenAI for 2 GW of compute. (Source: openai.com) |
| 2026-04-29 | OpenAI ("Inside Stargate"): 8+ GW of 10 GW target identified for 2029; available compute tripled YoY to ~1.9 GW in 2025; Abilene mayor pushes back on water-use criticism. (Source: openaiglobalaffairs.substack.com) |
| 2026-04-29 | FT: Stargate JV abandoned in practice — OpenAI shifts to large bilateral deals (Oracle, AWS, Microsoft, SoftBank); "Stargate has now had three or four permutations." (Source: ft.com) |
| 2026-04-29 | SoftBank Roze IPO planned: US-based AI/robotics data-center company, IPO as early as 2026 at ~$100B valuation. (Source: ft.com) |
| 2025-10-25 | SoftBank's remaining $22.5B investment greenlit (The Information). |
| 2025-09-22 | OpenAI-Nvidia 10 GW / $100B partnership. |
| 2025-03-18 | Bloomberg: Abilene site could hold 400K Blackwell chips. |
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2025-01 | Stargate first announced (SoftBank + OpenAI + Oracle + MGX) |
| 2025-03-18 | Bloomberg: Abilene site could hold 400K Blackwell chips |
| 2025-05-10 | Stargate $100B seeks state hosts (WaPo) |
| 2025-05-12 | Bloomberg: SoftBank slowdown in financing talks |
| 2025-05-24 | SemiAnalysis Layer Cake piece |
| 2025-06-06 | US-UAE AI data campus deal "far from finalized" (Reuters) |
| 2025-07-31 | Stargate Norway announced |
| 2025-09-22 | OpenAI-Nvidia 10 GW / $100B |
| 2025-09-23 | 5 new US sites announced |
| 2025-10-25 | SoftBank's remaining $22.5B greenlit |
| 2025-11-14 | Trillion-dollar data-center vision (DCD) |
| 2026-01-28 | Warren letter scrutinizes OpenAI's $1.4T commitments |
| 2026-02-05 | Elon Musk serious about orbital data centers (TechCrunch) — adjacent frame |
| 2026-04-29 | OpenAI ("Inside Stargate"): 8+ GW of 10 GW target identified for 2029; compute ~1.9 GW in 2025 |
| 2026-04-29 | FT: Stargate JV abandoned in practice; SoftBank Roze IPO disclosed |
| 2026-04-30 | AWS-OpenAI $100B compute expansion; Amazon $50B for 2 GW |
Relationships
- depends-on: OpenAI, Nvidia & TSMC — AI Compute Infrastructure, SoftBank, Oracle, MGX, CoreWeave, NERC 2025 Long-Term Reliability Assessment (LTRA), (Source: Raw Sources/SemiAnalysis - Stargate Data Center Layer Cake.md).
- supports: AI Bubble Debate, Circular Financing in AI, Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics, Compute Governance.
- related: Abundant Intelligence (Altman), Sen. Warren Letter to OpenAI (2026-01-28), Bain & Company — 6th Annual Global Technology Report (2025), IEA — Energy and AI.