SoftBank and OpenAI will invest $19 billion each in AI megaproject Stargate

The mega-project Stargate, announced yesterday, which is intended to attract $100 billion in the first stage alone for the construction of infrastructure in the United States for the development of artificial intelligence systems, through the efforts of The Information resource, revealed the expected capital structure. SoftBank and OpenAI will each receive 20% of Stargate shares, investing $19 billion each.

Image source: OpenAI

In fact, as the source notes, Stargate will resemble a venture fund, with SoftBank and OpenAI acting as general partners. Oracle and MGX will each contribute $7 billion, with the rest coming from smaller investors or raised in the debt market. Accordingly, Arm, Nvidia and Microsoft will act as technology partners, and will make their contribution to the development of the initiative in a non-monetary manner, without claiming to participate in the management of Stargate. True, Arm is owned by SoftBank, so it is difficult to draw a clear line between the interests of both companies in this area.

As Oracle CEO Larry Ellison admitted, some of the data centers covered by Stargate had already begun to be built even before the announcement of this initiative. OpenAI also developed its own infrastructure of this nature earlier, so not all of its objects will have to be created separately for Stargate. As of the end of September, SoftBank had available funds of $25 billion, and the desire of the head of the corporation to spend $100 billion on infrastructure development in the United States during Trump’s second presidential term was outlined even before the founding of Stargate. Under this banner, in fact, the efforts of several companies to develop artificial intelligence systems will be consolidated, and the US authorities will ensure that it is consistent with national interests.