ABILENE, Texas—ChatGPT parent OpenAI, cloud giant Oracle, and investment firm SoftBank are opening five new data centers across the country, expanding the footprint of the government-backed artificial intelligence venture called Stargate.
OpenAI and Oracle will build three, which will be located in Shackelford Co., Texas; Doña Ana Co., N.M.; and somewhere not yet announced in the Midwest. Two other sites, built by OpenAI and SoftBank, will open in Lordstown, Ohio, and Milam Co., Texas.
“[We’re] really focused on enabling AI to have all the compute capacity it needs,” new co-CEO of Oracle, Clay Magouyrk, said at a press conference in Abilene, the first Stargate site, on Tuesday.
Oracle stock was up 1.7% in after-hours trading to $319 after the announcement. Shares fell 4.4% in regular trading.
From left: Texas Rep. Jodey Arrington, Sen. Ted Cruz, Oracle co-CEO Clay Magouyrk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SoftBank Managing Partner Vikas Parekh, and Abilene Mayor Weldon W. Hurt
The companies unveiled the Stargate partnership with President Donald Trump in January. Stargate’s goal is to invest $500 billion over the next four years to build out 10 gigawatts of capacity or AI operations in the U.S.
The five new sites bring the Stargate project to nearly 7 gigawatts of capacity and over $400 billion in investment over the next three years.
“AI is different from the internet in a lot of ways, but one of them is just how much infrastructure it takes,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at the press conference. “We will push on infrastructure as hard as we can because that is what will drive our ability to deliver amazing technology, amazing products, and services.”
AI data centers host the infrastructure required to run powerful AI workloads through networking, servers, and other pieces of hardware. Because these AI workloads require a lot of energy, data centers are built to not only transmit energy to the hardware but also keep the hardware from overheating.
The Abilene site is set to be completed in 2026. Part of that data center is currently up and running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Oracle and OpenAI said they are also looking into a potential expansion of the Abilene site to produce 600 more megawatts.
The three sites being built by OpenAI and Oracle, along with the existing Abilene center and the potential expansion site, will be able to deliver over 5.5 gigawatts of capacity, the companies said, and are expected to create over 25,000 on-site jobs.
Construction of the Shackelford Co. site that is being built in connection with OpenAI and Oracle has already begun, with the first building scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2026.
There isn’t yet a specific timeline for the buildout of the New Mexico or Midwest centers that are also being built by OpenAI and Oracle.
The two other sites being built with SoftBank are expected to start scaling next year.
