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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.

Alphabet Plans Massive Capex Increase as Cloud Revenue Growth Slows

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Alphabet (GOOGL.O) announced plans to spend $75 billion on its AI infrastructure in 2025, a 29% increase over Wall Street’s expectations. This announcement led to a 9% drop in Alphabet’s stock in after-hours trading as investors expressed disappointment with the company’s missed cloud revenue target and growing concerns over its profitability.

Alphabet’s planned capex for 2025 exceeds analysts’ expectations of $58 billion and marks a dramatic increase from the $52.5 billion spent in 2024. CEO Sundar Pichai defended this surge in investment, citing the enormous potential of the AI space and promising that the cost of AI technology would continue to decrease, making it more accessible. Despite this optimism, Alphabet reported a slowdown in its cloud revenue growth, which failed to meet projections.

The company’s cloud business saw a 30% rise in revenue, reaching $11.96 billion for the fourth quarter. However, this was a deceleration from the 35% growth in the previous quarter and missed the expected $12.16 billion. Pichai emphasized that the Gemini family of AI models would drive further growth within the cloud platform, noting that developer usage of Gemini had doubled in the last six months.

Alphabet’s capital spending is primarily focused on building servers and data centers to support its AI initiatives. The company’s cloud segment has faced heightened competition, especially from rivals like Microsoft and Amazon, with the latter set to release its quarterly results soon.

Meanwhile, Alphabet’s core advertising business, which represents around 75% of total revenue, showed positive performance, with ad revenue growing 10.6% to $72.46 billion in the fourth quarter. YouTube contributed significantly to this growth, with ad revenue increasing by 13.8%.

Alphabet’s overall revenue for the quarter rose 12% to $96.47 billion, surpassing analyst expectations, while profits came in at $2.15 per share, above the forecasted $2.13 per share.

 

Japan PM to Meet OpenAI and SoftBank CEOs Amid AI Investment Talks

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Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is set to meet with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank Group, on Monday, as announced by the Japanese government. The meeting is expected to center on artificial intelligence (AI) developments and investment opportunities.

This comes shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement that OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle will form a joint venture aimed at investing up to $500 billion to develop AI infrastructure. The move highlights the growing global importance of AI, with Japan seeking to bolster its position in the sector by engaging with key players like OpenAI and SoftBank.