AI infrastructure accelerates, OpenAI officially announces partnership with Oracle to expand a 4.5GW data center

OpenAI and Oracle expand cooperation to develop 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity, further advancing the AI company's "de-Microsoftization" path.

OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with Oracle to develop an additional 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity in the United States, further expanding the cooperation between the two parties in the field of artificial intelligence infrastructure. This expansion will bring the total capacity of the Stargate project to over 5 gigawatts, operating more than 2 million chips, significantly advancing the project towards the initially promised 10 gigawatts target.

According to a previous article by Wall Street Insight, Oracle disclosed earlier this month that it has reached a cloud service agreement that will contribute over $30 billion in annual revenue starting from fiscal year 2028. Media reports indicate that the Stargate agreement between Oracle and OpenAI is at least part of this cloud agreement.

The new data center capacity is expected to create over 100,000 jobs, covering direct positions in construction, operations, and related manufacturing and services. This expansion highlights the large-scale infrastructure investments made by American tech companies to maintain their leading position in the global AI race.

Texas Data Center Construction Makes Substantial Progress

The construction of the Stargate data center located in Abilene, Texas, is progressing, with some facilities already operational.

According to OpenAI, Oracle began delivering the first batch of NVIDIA GB200 racks last month, and OpenAI has recently started running early training and inference workloads, utilizing this capacity to push the limits of next-generation cutting-edge research.

The Texas site has already created thousands of jobs, and more employment opportunities are expected as operations expand. These professional positions include electricians, equipment operators, and technicians, with employees coming from over 20 states.

OpenAI estimates that the construction, development, and operation of the newly announced 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity will create over 100,000 jobs in the United States. This estimate includes direct full-time jobs required to operate the Stargate data center, short-term construction positions, and indirect jobs such as manufacturing and local services.

As mentioned in a previous article, in addition to nearly doubling the current 1.2GW power capacity of the under-construction Abilene data center to about 2GW, Oracle is also considering building new data centers in Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, and is looking at sites in New Mexico, Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

SoftBank Cooperation Progressing Simultaneously, Project Scale Continues to Expand

This cooperation is an important expansion of the Stargate initiative announced by the White House in January this year. The initiative plans to invest up to $500 billion over four years to build 10 gigawatts of AI infrastructure capacity In addition to the collaboration with Oracle, OpenAI's partnership with SoftBank is also progressing strongly. The two companies are rapidly conducting site evaluations and reimagining data center designs to support advanced AI applications.

According to previous reports by Reuters, OpenAI and SoftBank each committed to invest $19 billion in the Stargate project. However, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the two companies have differences on some issues, and Stargate has now set more modest goals, planning to build a small data center by the end of 2025, possibly located in Ohio.

OpenAI stated that the growing interest in the Stargate project over the past six months has helped shape and expand the vision of the project. Stargate has now evolved into OpenAI's comprehensive AI infrastructure platform, covering ongoing data center partnerships with Oracle, SoftBank, and CoreWeave.

Despite the ambitious nature of the project, analysts are skeptical about its ability to secure sufficient funding, including the $100 billion needed for immediate deployment. In January of this year, Musk questioned the project, stating, "They don't actually have that money."

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