SoftBank's Role in $500 Billion Stargate AI Venture Seen as Major Growth Driver, Analyst Says

The Trump Administration has announced an AI infrastructure joint venture in the U.S. named “Stargate,” comprised of OpenAI, SoftBank Group SFTBF SFTBY, Oracle Corp ORCL, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX. The venture will deploy $100 billion initially and up to $500 billion over the next four years.

Masayoshi Son of SoftBank (rated Outperform), Sam Altman of OpenAI, and Larry Ellison of Oracle participated in the press conference at the White House.

Also Read: Anthropic Gains Big With Google Backing, Aims for $60 Billion Valuation and Surging AI Revenue

Ellison noted that the JV’s initial ten data center buildings are in Abilene, Texas, with plans to expand to twenty.

Macquarie analyst Paul Golding recalled that Son and President Donald Trump announced in December plans for SoftBank to invest $100 in the U.S. over the next four years while creating 100,000 jobs focused on “AI and related infrastructure.”

The OpenAI release on Stargate outlines SoftBank as having financial responsibility, OpenAI operational responsibility, and Son as Chairman of the JV. Arm Holdings Plc ARM, Microsoft Corp MSFT, Nvidia Corp MSFT, Oracle, and OpenAI are the key initial tech partners.

Golding had been tracking a potential “mega-project” at SoftBank, focused on AI, semis, and data centers, for quite some time. In those early reports, the analyst cited that the investment size targeted was ~$100 billion. The breadth of the project type spanned data centers, colocated data center power generation, vaccines, and artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Prior reports indicated Son’s plan to use an Arm AI chip division to supply chips for new SoftBank data centers starting in 2026 while exploring fusion tech to power them.

Meanwhile, Arm IP is being leveraged in the partnership between Nvidia and SoftBank to develop multi-access edge computing technology for AI over 5G across Japan for deployment in other countries based on fine-tuning from the Japan pilot.

Golding remarked this could eventually be incorporated into Stargate to unlock IoT capabilities, inference at the edge, and other AI-enhanced processes.

While funding considerations and operational bandwidth for SoftBank will be key areas to watch as Stargate gets up and running, participation in a project of this scale alongside heavyweights in the AI space like OpenAI, in Golding’s opinion, shows how valuable the quality and combination of SoftBank’s assets and tech investment management capabilities are seen to be, given the time and place in tech and the world.

Also Read:

• Huawei Wants To Take Nvidia’s Place In AI In China, Shifts Focus to Inference Over Training

Photo via Shutterstock