OpenAI has shaken hands with Oracle on a colossal deal to advance the former’s colossal Stargate AI data centre initiative.
It’s one thing to talk about the AI revolution in abstract terms, but it’s another thing entirely to grasp the sheer physical scale of what’s being built to make it happen. The foundations of our AI future are being laid in concrete, steel, and miles of fibre-optic cable, and those foundations are getting colossally bigger.
Together, OpenAI and Oracle are going to build new data centres in the US packed with enough hardware to consume 4.5 gigawatts of power. It’s hard to overstate what a staggering amount of energy that is—it’s the kind of power that could light up a major city. And all of it will be dedicated to one thing: powering the next generation of AI.
This isn’t just a random expansion; it’s a huge piece of OpenAI’s grand Stargate plan. The goal is simple: to build enough computing power to bring advanced AI to everyone.
When you add this new project to the work already underway in Abilene, Texas, OpenAI is now developing over 5 gigawatts of data centre capacity. That’s enough space to run more than two million of the most powerful computer chips available.
This move shows they are dead serious about a pledge they made at the White House earlier this year to plough half a trillion dollars into US AI infrastructure. In fact, with the momentum they’re getting from partners like Oracle and Japan’s SoftBank, they now expect to blow past that initial goal.
But this story isn’t just about silicon chips and corporate deals; it’s about people. OpenAI believes that building and running these new Stargate AI data centres will create over 100,000 jobs.
That job creation presents real opportunities for families across the country from construction crews pouring the concrete, to specialised electricians wiring up racks of servers, and the full-time technicians who will keep these digital brains running day and night.
In Abilene, the first phase of OpenAI’s development of Stargate data centres is already humming with activity. The first truckloads of Nvidia’s brand-new GB200 chips have arrived, and OpenAI’s researchers are already using them to see what their next AI models are capable of.
Of course, a project this huge is never a two-player game. While Oracle is helping build the physical capacity for the Stargate initiative, OpenAI is also working closely with SoftBank to completely rethink how AI data centres should be designed from the ground up. And let’s not forget Microsoft, which remains the key cloud partner, providing the digital plumbing that connects everything together.
Behind the curtain, there is a very real and very human industrial effort underway on a scale we’ve rarely seen before. It’s a powerful reminder that our digital world is built with grit, ambition, and an almost unbelievable (albeit concerning) amount of electricity.
See also: Can speed and safety truly coexist in the AI race?
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