Trump unveils $500B ‘Project Stargate’ to build AI infrastructure in the U.S.

At a press conference on Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced the formation of Project Stargate, an at least $500 billion investment to build the physical and virtual infrastructure to power AI construction, including “colossal data centers” and campuses nationwide in America, with one of its goals to improve health outcomes.

Trump announced Stargate alongside three partners of the project: Oracle’s chief technology officer Larry Ellison, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. 

Ellison said the data centers are currently under construction. The first location is in Abilene, Texas, with 10 buildings currently being built, each with an area of half a million square feet. Oracle’s CTO said the number will expand to 20 buildings and extend beyond Abilene. 

Ellison highlighted the goal of Project Stargate and the kind of AI applications it aims to build. 

“Not just maintaining electronic health records, but by looking at electronic health records and doctors better understanding the conditions of their patients and being able to provide healthcare plans that are much better than they otherwise would be,” Ellison said. 

“A doctor at Indian River Reservation would be able to see how a doctor at Memorial Sloan Kettering [Cancer Center] would treat the patient or a doctor at Stanford would treat the patient. We actually provide all of that information, all of that guidance to the doctors who are treating cancer patients or patients with any other kind of disease, made possible by AI.” 

Son said there will be an immediate $100 billion investment in the project with the goal of it becoming $500 billion within the next four years. 

Abu Dhabi-based technology investment firm MGX will contribute funding to the project, NVIDIA will be a technology partner, and Microsoft will offer support. 

“This is not just for business,” Son said. “This will help people’s lives. This will help in solving many, many issues, difficult things that otherwise we could not have solved with the power of AI.” 

Son says AGI – artificial general intelligence – is coming very soon, but “that is not the goal.” After that, Son says, comes artificial superintelligence, which will “solve the issues that mankind would never have thought that we could solve.”

Altman said he is thrilled to be part of the project and anticipates diseases will be cured at an unprecedented rate. 

“We will be amazed at how quickly we are curing this cancer and that one and heart disease and what this will do for the ability to deliver very high-quality healthcare, the costs, but really to cure the diseases at a rapid rate I think will be among the most important things this technology does,” Altman said. 

Ellison added that one of the “most exciting” things the group is working on, using the tools that Altman and Son are providing, is a cancer vaccine.

“All of our cancer tumors, little fragments of those tumors float around in your blood,” Ellison said. “So, you can do early cancer detection with a blood test, and using AI to look at the blood test, you can find the cancers that are seriously threatening the person. So, cancer diagnosis using AI has the promise of just being a simple blood test.”

Beyond that, Ellison said that once a cancer tumor is gene sequenced, a personalized mRNA vaccine can be designed for every individual to vaccinate them against that cancer. Ellison said the vaccine can be designed robotically using AI in about 48 hours. 

Trump says the project will almost immediately create over 100,000 American jobs and “ensure the future of technology.” 

The president added that the project will ensure AI infrastructure in the United States by competing against China and others in the space who are moving forward rapidly with their technologies. 

During the press conference, President Trump said he would help with the quick build of the AI infrastructure through emergency declarations.

“They have to produce a lot of electricity, and we’ll make it possible for them to get that done very easily, at their own plants if they want,” Trump said. “At the AI plant, they will build energy generation.” 

Ellison added, “This is the promise of AI and the promise of the future.”

THE LARGER TREND

On his first day in office of his second term, one day before the Project Stargate announcement, President Donald Trump revoked Joe Biden’s 2023 executive order pertaining to responsible AI development.

Biden’s order aimed to establish standards for the safe, secure and trustworthy development of AI across various sectors, including healthcare.

Among its many provisions, Biden’s order directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish a safety program “to help ensure the safe, responsible deployment and use of AI in the healthcare, public-health and human-services sectors,” and to allow the agency to “receive reports of – and act to remedy – harms or unsafe healthcare practices involving AI.”

Trump’s executive order, “Initial Recissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” included the revocation of Biden’s AI order, along with 66 other orders Biden signed and 11 Presidential Memoranda.

Shortly after President Trump announced Project Stargate, Elon Musk, who was named the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), posted a response to OpenAI’s announcement of the project on X, stating, “They don’t actually have the money,” and later adding, “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.” 

DOGE was officially made part of the U.S. government on Monday through an executive order President Trump signed renaming the U.S. Digital Service, which was created by President Barack Obama in 2014, as the U.S. DOGE Service. DOGE will be established within the Executive Office of the President.