OpenAI Expands AI Infrastructure with Oracle Deal: 4.5 GW Boost, Ambitious Compute Targets Announced

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OpenAI has unveiled a significant expansion for its AI supercomputing infrastructure in a partnership announced Tuesday with Oracle. The deal, adding 4.5 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, marks a substantial increase in the project’s scope and forms part of OpenAI’s long-term vision.

According to a Tuesday statement, the collaboration aims to add power beyond its existing Stargate I data center located in Abilene, Texas, significantly exceeding the project’s initial $500 billion commitment made at the White House in January. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised the project scale, stating on X: “This is a gigantic infrastructure project,” accompanied by images of the Abilene site.

Building on this foundation, Altman confirmed in an X post that OpenAI plans to bring online “over 1 million GPUs by year-end,” acknowledging future challenges: “Now they better get to work figuring out how to 100x that.” The Oracle partnership pushes the Stargate total planned development beyond 5 GW, sufficient to power over 2 million AI chips. Altman indicated ambitions “far exceeding the $500 billion commitment,” targeting global deployment of 10 GW of compute capacity.

Aiming for Exponential Compute: Elon Musk outlines xAI ambitions

Concurrent with OpenAI’s expansion, Tesla CEO and xAI founder Elon Musk shared ambitious plans for his own AI venture. Musk announced on X that xAI’s goal is to “get 50 million H100 units equivalent” of AI compute online within the next five years, promising enhanced power efficiency.

This translates to compute power potentially 500 times greater than the previously recognized global peak one year ago. A simulation by an X user, TeslaPrice, noted that xAI’s upcoming Colossus 2 supercomputer, featuring 550,000 GB200 chips (equivalent to 5.5 million H100s), would itself approach current H100 grid levels. Musk’s plan, if met, would nearly multiply Colossus 2’s compute power by ten.

Stargate Initiative Faces Implementation Hurdles

Connected to the White House initiative launched by former President Donald Trump last year, the multi-billion dollar Stargate AI project involves OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, aiming for widespread US AI infrastructure deployment and tens of thousands of jobs.

However, a report from The Wall Street Journal highlights operational challenges for the project, citing delays and disagreements between OpenAI and SoftBank as key obstacles. Prior near-term targets, including deployment of $100 billion immediately and establishing multiple data centers, have been reported by the publication as scaled back, with Year-End 2025 potentially seeing the delivery of only a single data center.