OpenAI Explores U.S. Data Center Sites for Stargate AI Project Amid China Competition

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OpenAI announced on Thursday that it is evaluating several U.S. states as potential locations for data centers supporting its Stargate AI venture. The initiative is positioned as a strategic move to maintain U.S. leadership over China in the AI race.

Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, highlighted the competitive urgency. “With the emergence of DeepSeek, it’s clear this competition is serious. Whoever prevails will shape the future, whether it’s democratic and open AI or authoritarian and autocratic AI,” he said.

Stargate, unveiled by U.S. President Donald Trump last month, represents a private sector AI infrastructure investment of up to $500 billion. Funded by SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle, the project has already committed $100 billion for immediate deployment, with further investments to roll out over the next four years.

Sixteen U.S. states have expressed interest in hosting Stargate data centers, with Texas designated as the flagship location. The first data center, under construction in Abilene, Texas, is being developed by startup Crusoe and is expected to be partially operational later this year. Keith Heyde, leading site selection for Stargate, said, “We are looking at five to ten sites for our campus footprint.”

However, the emergence of China’s low-cost DeepSeek AI model has cast doubt on the assumption that large-scale, specialized data centers are essential for AI advancement. DeepSeek researchers claimed they trained their model on less sophisticated chips at a fraction of the cost required by American AI models.

This development sent shockwaves through global markets. Investors reacted by dumping tech stocks, particularly Nvidia, the leading AI chipmaker, wiping out $593 billion of its market value—the largest one-day loss ever recorded on Wall Street.

U.S. AI Safety Institute Staff Excluded from Trump’s Paris AI Summit Delegation

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The United States delegation to an artificial intelligence summit in Paris on February 10-11 will not include staff from the U.S. AI Safety Institute, according to sources familiar with Washington’s plans. Vice President JD Vance will lead the delegation, which will gather representatives from around 100 countries to discuss AI’s potential.

Attending on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) are Principal Deputy Director Lynne Parker and Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence Sriram Krishnan, an OSTP spokesperson confirmed. However, plans for officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Commerce, including the AI Safety Institute, to attend were canceled, said anonymous sources close to the situation.

The AI Safety Institute, established under former President Joe Biden, is dedicated to evaluating and mitigating AI risks and has partnerships with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Its future direction under the Trump administration remains uncertain, especially as the body currently lacks a director. Trump also recently revoked an AI executive order from Biden’s administration.

The decision not to include AI Safety Institute staff in the delegation may be linked to the ongoing transition at the Commerce Department, where the institute is housed, following Trump’s January 20 inauguration.

The Paris summit will focus less on AI risks compared to previous international summits held at Bletchley Park and Seoul. Nevertheless, representatives from the International Network of AI Safety Institutes, chaired by the United States, are expected to attend. U.S. delegates may still participate in network discussions, with a focus on ensuring the U.S. remains a leader in AI innovation amid China’s rapid advancements in the field.

AI Chip Firm Cerebras Partners with Mistral, Claims AI Speed Record

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Cerebras Systems, a Silicon Valley-based AI chip manufacturer backed by UAE tech firm G42, announced on Thursday its partnership with French AI company Mistral, helping it achieve a new speed record for AI responses.

Mistral, known for its open-source AI technology, aims to rival competitors such as Meta Platforms and China’s DeepSeek, both of which are challenging OpenAI’s dominance in the AI space. On Thursday, Mistral launched a new app, Le Chat, capable of generating responses at a speed of 1,000 words per second.

Cerebras provided the computational power to achieve this speed, which it claimed surpasses the performance of both OpenAI and DeepSeek, making Mistral’s Le Chat the fastest AI assistant globally.

Cerebras, which has filed for an initial public offering currently under U.S. regulatory review due to G42’s involvement, is one of the few major challengers to Nvidia in the AI chip market for training large models. However, its collaboration with Mistral focuses on inference, the process of serving model-based applications to users in real-time.

Andrew Feldman, Cerebras CEO, emphasized that speed in delivering answers has become a key focus as competitors close in on OpenAI’s models. “You want better answers. And to get better answers, you need more compute at inference time,” Feldman told Reuters. He also expressed pride in the collaboration with Mistral, calling it Cerebras’ first major win with a top-tier AI model developer.