The $500 billion Stargate project with the aim of giving the U.S. an edge in the artificial intelligence (AI) race is moving forward following the announcement of five new AI data center sites revealed on Tuesday by the companies investing in the project.
OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank unveiled new data center sites as part of the Stargate project that was first announced in January as part of a $500 billion investment in 10 gigawatts of data center capacity. The five new AI data centers include sites in Shackelford County, Texas; Doña Ana County, New Mexico; a site in the Midwest that will be announced soon; as well as sites in Lordstown, Ohio; and in Milam County, Texas.
FOX Business Network's Madison Alworth spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the flagship Stargate campus in Abilene, Texas, where Altman said, "We announced in January that we were going to do a $500 billion project. We're ahead of schedule on that with these sites that we've announced. That will be almost all of it. And we're going to keep expanding like this."
"This is what it takes to make ChatGPT work. You send a query on your phone and it comes up with an answer. You don't think about this, but a lot of people are doing that, and that requires all of this incredible work behind us," Altman explained.
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Following Tuesday's announcement, OpenAI said the Stargate project has reached more than $400 billion in investment committed over the next three years, which will account for nearly 7 gigawatts of planned capacity, leaving the project on pace to secure the full commitment for $500 billion investment and 10 gigawatts of power capacity by the end of this year.
"The amount of ChatGPT usage has grown more than 10x since the beginning of last year, a lot more. And as we see these models getting more capable, which also takes more compute to get there, there's way more use for them in the economy, people just want way more of this," Altman said.
"When we come walk sites like this and look at the incredible work, the first thing we think is this is awesome, and the second thing we think is we have to figure out how to do much more, faster, better, cheaper to continue to meet what the demand scales will be years from now," he explained.
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Altman explained that OpenAI and its partners are weighing how best to serve not only the surging demand for current AI tools, but also how to plan for powering new features and products as those roll out in the future.
"When people complain that ChatGPT is slow or that they don't get as much usage as they want, they don't have enough features – this is what we have to do," Altman added.
"To deliver on that promise, and also to deliver on all the businesses that are now dependent on us and the crazy amount of API demand, the demand for Codex, to say nothing of new features and products we'll be launching, we have to figure out how to keep doing this faster and faster."
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The OpenAI co-founder was asked by Alworth about what factors the emerging AI giant looked for in deciding where to build Stargate's new data centers and explained why Texas has become a focal point for such facilities.
"There's a few factors, many of which Texas is phenomenal at. You need a lot of energy availability. You want a favorable regulatory environment that allows construction, fast permits. You need the talent to come build all of this… you need the land obviously," Altman explained. "There's a lot of things together, but Texas has been an unusually good place for us to be doing these projects."
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OpenAI said in its announcement the companies reviewed over 300 proposals from more than 30 states as it worked toward today's site selection, adding that additional sites will be announced as the group of companies completes and surpasses its initial $500 billion AI infrastructure commitment.
FOX Business' Madison Alworth contributed to this report.
