One of the most ambitious projects in the field of artificial intelligence — Stargate, initiated by SoftBank and OpenAI — has suspended the active phase of implementation. The promised $100 billion in investments has not been attracted, and negotiations with investors have slowed down against the backdrop of trade risks, US tariff policy, and economic instability.
One of the most ambitious projects in the field of artificial intelligence — Stargate, initiated by SoftBank and OpenAI — has suspended the active phase of implementation. The promised $100 billion in investments has not been attracted, and negotiations with investors have slowed down against the backdrop of trade risks, US tariff policy, and economic instability.
This is reported by Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the negotiations. The Stargate project was announced in January 2024 by OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman and SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son. They announced their intention to invest $100 billion «immediately» in creating a hyperscale AI infrastructure in the United States, and later increase the amount to $500 billion.
However, three months later, SoftBank has yet to present a financial model for the project or begin full-fledged negotiations with major banks and funds. Despite preliminary consultations with JPMorgan, Mizuho, Apollo, Brookfield, and others, no deal has been signed.
Factors holding back Stargate:
SoftBank has created a separate team of 20-30 people to work on Stargate. It includes Vikas Parekh, managing partner of the Vision Fund in America. The plan is to raise financing at the project level through pension funds, insurers, bank loans and bonds. SoftBank is ready to cover only 10-20% of the costs with its own capital.
Stargate also includes Oracle and Mubadala (via MGX). In January, Donald Trump, then the frontrunner in the presidential race, supported the initiative, calling it «the new industrial revolution of the United States.»
However, now it is the US tariff policy, initiated during Trump’s first term, that has become one of the factors slowing down the progress of the Stargate initiative.
Recall that in January, the CEO of OpenAI and Elon Musk publicly quarreled after the eccentric billionaire began sharply criticizing the Stargate project.
