Trump announced a $500 billion AI infrastructure plan Stargate, AI established the dominant position in the market this year

Author: Chloe, PANews

On January 21, Trump invited SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison to the White House on his first full day in office.

At the press conference, Trump announced that SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle will jointly establish a new AI company Stargate. Trump said, "This is the largest AI infrastructure project in history.

These companies will initially invest $100 billion in this AI project, with the goal of increasing it to over $500 billion, including the establishment of data centers and physical parks. Microsoft and NVIDIA are also expected to participate. Trump said the project is expected to create 100,000 jobs in the United States.

According to insiders, in December 2024, Son Masayoshi visited Trump’s private residence in southern Florida, USA, and announced that he would invest $100 billion in the United States during the four years of the Trump administration. It is reported that most of the investment will be related to AI, and it seems that the first phase has now been launched. Even Trump publicly praised Son Masayoshi as a ‘great leader and investor’ at the time, and then jokingly asked him, ‘Would you like to increase your investment by $200 billion?’

Currently, according to foreign media, it can be learned that the initial equity sponsors of Stargate are SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX. Among them, SoftBank and OpenAI are the main partners, with SoftBank taking financial responsibility and Masayoshi Son serving as chairman, while OpenAI takes operational responsibility. Oracle, Microsoft, Arm, and NVIDIA are all involved as technical partners.

Trump officially abandons the energy policy and focuses on the construction of artificial intelligence.

In the past few months, CEOs of major AI technology giants have been continuously warning the government that more data centers, chips, power, and water resources are needed in the coming years to support the development of artificial intelligence.

Just shortly after Trump was sworn in, he canceled the AI barrier imposed by Biden and signed a series of measures to promote US energy development to meet the surging power demand in data centers. The Biden administration has been trying to address the potential risks of AI in the past two years, but the new president Trump’s new actions, such as revoking Biden’s AI executive orders and supporting AI infrastructure, are completely contrary, conveying a message that strongly developing infrastructure.

“I believe this will be the most important project of this era,” said Sam Altman at a press conference on January 21. “Without President Trump, we would not be able to complete this work.” Trump responded that he would use emergency declarations and executive actions to help build the project, including making it easier to obtain energy. At the press conference, Trump and senior officials emphasized the potential applications of artificial intelligence in health and other fields, which will drive overall economic growth in the United States."

Sam Altman previously revealed that OpenAI is constantly increasing its computational demands to train more complex AI models and provide services. In addition to expanding its use of Microsoft Azure, cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon and Oracle are also competing to expand their data centers to enhance computing capabilities.

However, the cost of data centers should not be underestimated. According to McKinsey’s forecast, the capital expenditure for procurement and installation alone could exceed $250 billion over the next five years to build the data center infrastructure behind AI development.

Where will the funding for the Stargate infrastructure come from, if Trump wants to rely on government funding, Congress will have to approve billions of budget expenditures, but this also contradicts Trump’s advocacy of reducing government spending?

Is SoftBank serving as a financial backer due to OpenAI’s undervaluation?

As no official announcement has been made yet, it is unclear how much funding SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle will inject into the $500 billion AI infrastructure project, which raises questions about the source of funds in the market. Judging by OpenAI’s current valuation of $150 billion, it is obviously unable to support such a large-scale plan by Trump.

Based on the preliminary press conference information, it can be inferred that OpenAI will provide guidance on operations, and Oracle, as one of the largest data center operators in the United States, will provide technical resources. SoftBank, on the other hand, has strong financial strength to develop AI infrastructure.

Interestingly, OpenAI had already received investment from SoftBank Group in 2024. So far, OpenAI has been using Microsoft Azure services for AI development, but the market believes that Microsoft’s computing power cannot keep up with OpenAI’s needs. If OpenAI extends its tentacles to collaborate with SoftBank and Oracle on the infrastructure for AI development, it will be a big positive for OpenAI.

And Sam Altman said in an interview with Fox News last month that he believes Trump is “good at” attracting AI infrastructure investment to the United States and that he “looks forward to working with his government in this regard.” "Infrastructure is very important in the United States. AI is a bit different from other types of software because it requires a lot of infrastructure, power, computer chips, and data centers.

He also estimates that there is currently $175 billion in global funds waiting to invest in AI projects. “If the United States cannot attract these funds, they will flow to projects supported by other countries, weakening the United States’ global influence.”

Market funds have gradually flowed back to AI projects

After the release of Stargate, Oracle’s stock price rose by about 7%, Nvidia rose by 2.3%, Arm’s stock price rose by 4.1%, etc. Wall Street analysts said, ‘This is an important opportunity for Oracle, as it could become a key infrastructure provider for this large-scale investment.’

According to SoSoValue data on the 22nd, the AI Agents sector benefited from Stargate, with a 24-hour increase of 10.47%. PIPPIN, ARC, and AI16Z rose by 104.82%, 44.63%, and 30.17%, respectively. In addition, VIRTUAL rose by 11.95%.

Dune Analytics’ previous data indicates that the daily trading volume of Virtual Protocol has been declining since reaching its peak on January 2, with overall revenue in January dropping by 99%. One major factor behind this is the rise of TRUMP and MELANIA, especially in the past week, as the Meme sector has become the overall focus of the market, depleting liquidity from other areas, including the artificial intelligence agent market, leading to a 10% decline in the market value of AI tokens on January 20. Now, as the Meme trend gradually cools down and with the launch of Stargate, market funds are gradually flowing back to AI projects.