OpenAI's first data center in $500B Stargate project is open in Texas, with sites coming in New Mexico and Ohio (www.cnbc.com)

OpenAI and Oracle have brought the first flagship site of their $500 billion "Stargate" data‑center program online in Abilene, Texas. The operational building is populated with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and racks of Nvidia GPUs, with a second building nearly complete and campus capacity that could exceed one gigawatt. OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia and partners (including SoftBank and CoreWeave) announced five additional sites across Texas, New Mexico, Ohio and the Midwest, taking the initiative to nearly 7 gigawatts and more than $400 billion of investment over the next three years (including a prior $300 billion Oracle agreement) and aiming for 10 GW by the end of 2025. Technically and strategically, Stargate is a response to a global “compute crunch”: massive, centrally hosted GPU farms are needed to train and serve large models. OpenAI says much of the new capacity won’t be live until 2026, when next‑generation Nvidia Vera Rubin chips are expected, and Nvidia has taken equity positions while still selling GPUs into the buildouts — a structure that’s drawn scrutiny for its circular financing. The program’s scale has grid, workforce (6,000 construction jobs, ~1,700 long‑term roles) and geopolitical implications: it could reshape U.S. power infrastructure, cement domestic AI leadership, and raise policy questions around supply chains, competition and how cloud compute is financed and allocated.