Stargate continues to move forward despite initial skepticism.
In January, when OpenAI announced Stargate, critics questioned the company’s ability to deliver on its $500 billion funding promise. Elon Musk, a Trump ally who is often an Altman opponent. X “They don’t actually have the money,” claimed that Ed Zitron, a frequent OpenAI critic and tech writer “SoftBank has well under $10B secured.”
raised concerns about OpenAI’s financial situation. Zitron noted the company’s a href=””https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/27/openai-sees-5-billion-loss-this-year-on-3point7-billion-in-revenue.html””>$5 billion in losses in 2024. Zitron wrote about at the time on Bluesky.
OpenAI’s Abilene Data Center has now moved from construction to partial operations six months after it was built. Oracle delivered Nvidia GB200 Racks to the facility in the last month. OpenAI reported that it had started running early training workloads and inference workloads in support of what it calls “next-generation frontier research.”
Despite President Trump’s January announcement, the Stargate concept dates to March 2024. Over time, this plan evolved to its current form, a partnership between Oracle, SoftBank, CoreWeave, and SoftBank. OpenAI writes
“Stargate is an ambitious undertaking designed to meet the historic opportunity in front of us,” in the press release announcing this latest deal. “That opportunity is now coming to life through strong support from partners, governments, and investors worldwide—including important leadership from the White House, which has recognized the critical role AI infrastructure will play in driving innovation, economic growth, and national competitiveness.”
