Forward-looking: Oracle has committed to spending approximately $40 billion on Nvidia's latest high-performance chips to power a massive new data center in Abilene, Texas. The facility will require up to 1.2 gigawatts of power once fully operational and serves as the flagship site of the Stargate project – a $500 billion initiative led by OpenAI and SoftBank to reshape the landscape of AI computing in the United States and beyond. The facility will cover eight buildings across 875 acres. Crusoe Energy Systems and Blue Owl Capital raised $15 billion in debt and equity to finance the buildout. JPMorgan played a key role by providing $9.6 billion in loans, including a recently announced $7.1 billion tranche. When crews complete construction, the Texas facility will be one of the world's largest data centers when it opens in mid-2026. OpenAI has entered into a 15-year lease for the entire campus, which insiders told the Financial Times would run on roughly 400,000 Nvidia GB200 superchips. The data center will serve as a critical platform for OpenAI's AI model training and deployment, marking a crucial step in diversifying its computing resources and reducing reliance on Microsoft, its primary infrastructure provider until now. The exclusivity agreement between OpenAI and Microsoft concluded earlier this year, as OpenAI's demand for computing power surpassed Microsoft's available capacity. While negotiations continue regarding the duration of Microsoft's licensing rights to OpenAI's models, this development marks a significant shift toward diversified cloud partnerships for the AI leader. While Stargate has yet to directly invest capital in any data center beyond the Texas site, its global expansion plans are already taking shape, with additional deployments being considered in Europe and Asia. The scale and speed of these investments underscore the intensifying competition among technology companies and nations to build the backbone for the next generation of artificial intelligence. // Related Stories The Stargate project is ambitious in scale and vision. Backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and Abu Dhabi's MGX, the group plans to invest up to $500 billion over four years to build a national network of AI supercomputing centers. The first $100 billion will fund up to 20 sites, starting with the Texas facility. Sources say that SoftBank and OpenAI will each hold a 40 percent stake in the venture, making them the primary equity holders. Oracle and MGX, a state-owned investment firm from the United Arab Emirates, have committed $7 billion each. SoftBank will oversee finances, while OpenAI leads operations. OpenAI and its partners plan to expand Stargate beyond the US, starting with a 10-square-mile AI campus developed alongside Emirati tech firm G42 in Abu Dhabi. The site could consume up to 5GW of power – more than four times the Texas center – and eventually house over two million of Nvidia's most advanced chips. The UAE project, announced during President Donald Trump's recent Gulf visit, forms part of OpenAI's "OpenAI for Countries" initiative to help governments build sovereign AI infrastructure. Masthead credit: Financial Times

In Brief Posted: 7:40 AM PDT · May 22, 2025 Image Credits:JASON REDMOND/AFP / Getty Images OpenAI teams up with Cisco, Oracle to build UAE data center As rumored, OpenAI is expanding its ambitious Stargate data center project to the Middle East. On Thursday, the company announced Stargate UAE, which will bring a 1GW data center cluster to Abu Dhabi. OpenAI expects 200MW will go live in 2026, developed with partners including G42, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco, and SoftBank. In a blog post, OpenAI claims that Stargate UAE has the potential to provide AI infrastructure and compute capacity within a 2,000-mile radius. “This is […] the first partnership under OpenAI for Countries⁠, our new global initiative to help interested governments build sovereign AI capability in coordination with the U.S. government,” writes OpenAI. “Under the partnership, the UAE will become the first country in the world to enable ChatGPT nationwide — giving people across the country the ability to access OpenAI’s technology.” The unveiling of Stargate UAE comes the same week as billionaire Elon Musk said his AI company, xAI, would build the world’s first “gigawatt” AI training cluster. Topics

As the artificial intelligence industry struggles with ever-rising costs — not to mention a steady uptick in hallucinations — investors are getting impatient.One investment firm went as far as seizing $37 million from accounts owned by Builder.ai, a UK-based AI startup meant to make developing apps "as easy as ordering a pizza." That left the company with just $5 million, according to Bloomberg, prompting its senior lenders to place it into default.With very little cash left to keep the ship afloat, CEO Manpreet Ratia closed the startup's doors and filed for bankruptcy.Builder.ai was previously one of the most well-funded tech startups in the game, with over $450 million in backing from sources as big as tech giant Microsoft, Japanese investment firm SoftBank, and the Qatari government's sovereign wealth fund. That gave it a valuation worth over $1 billion, drawing comparisons to Mark Zuckerberg's Meta.Ratia told the Financial Times the startup was "unable to recover from historic challenges and past decisions that placed significant strain on its financial position," adding that he had been running the business with "zero dollars" in its US and UK accounts.The CEO took over for Builder.ai's founder and "chief wizard" Sachin Dev Duggal in March, after the latter saddled the business with hundreds of millions worth of debt while burning through its dwindling cash fund, according to FT.Duggal was likewise embattled in a high-stakes legal probe by authorities in India, who named him a suspect in an alleged money laundering case. For his part, Duggal denied the accusations, saying he was simply a witness, though FT has also reported Duggal heavily relied on the services of an auditor with whom he has close personal ties.It's not known what, exactly, pushed the first domino. Viola Credit, the company that seized Builder.ai's coffers, has yet to give an explanation, though we can probably guess they saw the writing on the wall and simply hoped to pad their losses.It's a big moment for the AI industry, as the pressure grows for AI companies to actually come out with a usable — not to mention sustainable — product. Though AI companies accounted for 40 percent of the money raised by US startups last year, the vast majority of them have yet to turn a profit.Many AI startups struggle to find any consistent revenue stream at all beyond tech-crazed venture capitalists, and a not insignificant number have been caught misleading investors about their AI's capabilities to keep the cash flowing.Case in point, after Ratia took the helm back in March, Builder.ai lowered its revenue estimates for the last half of 2024 by 25 percent — a major blow for the much-hyped company. The startup was likewise caught trying to pass off human-built software as AI back in 2019.As auditors and journalists sift through the rubble to find out what went wrong, now makes as good a time as any to take a temperature check on unchecked AI hype.More on AI startups: Company Regrets Replacing All Those Pesky Human Workers With AI, Just Wants Its Humans BackShare This Article

OpenAI is poised to help develop a staggering 5-gigawatt data center campus in Abu Dhabi, positioning the company as a primary anchor tenant in what could become one of the world’s largest AI infrastructure projects, according to a new Bloomberg report. The facility would reportedly span an astonishing 10 square miles and consume power equivalent to five nuclear reactors, dwarfing any existing AI infrastructure announced by OpenAI or its competitors. (OpenAI has not yet returned TechCrunch’s request for comment, but to put that into perspective, that’s bigger than Monaco.) The UAE project, developed in partnership with G42 – an Abu Dhabi-based tech conglomerate – is part of OpenAI’s ambitious Stargate project, a joint venture announced in January that could see OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle build massive data centers around the globe stocked with powerful computer chips to support AI development. While OpenAI’s first Stargate campus in the U.S. – already under development in Abilene, Texas – is expected to reach 1.2 gigawatts, this Middle Eastern counterpart would more than quadruple that capacity. The project is emerging amid broader AI ties between the U.S. and UAE that have been years in the making, and have made some lawmakers nervous. OpenAI’s relationship with the UAE dates back to a 2023 partnership with G42 aimed at driving AI adoption in the Middle East. During a talk earlier that same year in Abu Dhabi, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised the UAE, saying it “has been talking about AI since before it was cool.” As with much of the AI world, these relationships are… complicated. Founded in 2018, G42 is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security advisor and younger brother of the country’s ruler. Its embrace by OpenAI raised concerns in late 2023 among U.S. officials, who feared that G42 could enable China’s government to gain access to advanced U.S. technology. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW These concerns focused on G42’s “active relationships” with blacklisted entities, including Huawei and Beijing Genomics Institute, as well as ties to individuals connected to China’s intelligence efforts. Following pressure from U.S. lawmakers, G42’s CEO told Bloomberg in early 2024 that the company was shifting its strategy, saying: “All of our China investments that were previously made are already divested. Because of that, of course, we have no need anymore for any physical China presence.” Soon after, Microsoft – a major shareholder in OpenAI with its own broader interests in the region – announced a $1.5 billion investment in G42, and its president, Brad Smith, joined G42’s board of directors.

Watching the behavior of our tech overlords has answered questions I’d never thought to ask. How do you NDA an army of baby mamas? Is there anything more embarrassing than impersonating Benson Boone? (Also, who is Benson Boone?) And now, the latest: how long after a sovereign ruler of a repressive state murders one of your columnists should you make a deal with him? The answer, it turns out, is a little over six years.In October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a writer for the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, was killed and dismembered with the approval of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (better known as MBS) after Khashoggi entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get paperwork for his upcoming marriage. His body has never been found. On May 13th, Bezos’ Amazon announced it would work with Humain, MBS’ AI company, to build an “AI Zone” in Saudi Arabia — and the two companies will spend more than $5 billion in the process.Saudi money is old news in the tech industry — the Public Investment Fund has sloshed into lots of startups, either directly or via intermediaries such as SoftBank. Morally bankrupt moneygrubbers such as Andreessen Horowitz have been wooing Saudi funds for a while. (Perhaps that’s the real reason they endorsed the Saudis’ preferred candidate?) This isn’t the first deal for Amazon, either. In March, Amazon pledged to invest $5 billion to build data centers in a country that’s scrambling to look futuristic. In 2024, Saudi Arabia said it wanted to build an AI-powered economy. There’s a fancy website for Project 2030, which I guess is meant to distract us from all the oil money. That date isn’t a coincidence — many projections say that’s when oil production will peak and then decline. Regardless of when the actual peak occurs, a global shift away from petroleum threatens Saudi Arabia’s wealth. That’s why the country is behaving like a dipshit startup.Take Neom, billed as the city of the future, vaporware at a previously unimagined scale that also served as a “key tool” for MBS to consolidate power, according to Ali Dogan, a researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. Khashoggi’s murder was a blow to the project, as luminaries such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz suspended their involvement. A number of companies publicly renounced Saudi money — at least, for a while. Does the freedom to assassinate count as one of the personal liberties Bezos claims to treasure?Neom is moving down the entirely predictable vaporware path. It keeps getting delayed and downsized, which makes sense because it’s no longer the city of the future and a spectacular investment opportunity once it’s built — it’s just another city. But, according to Saudi officials, we won’t have to worry about that for another 50, or possibly 100, years. In the meantime, though, contracts! Investment! AI!Look, I don’t expect ethics out of Altman or any of his ilk. But for basic reasons of maintaining employee morale, I would hesitate to invest in a state that literally murdered one of my contractors. And didn’t merely murder him — but dismembered and then disappeared him. An opportunity the state had only because Khashoggi wanted to get married. Murder is bad enough, but every single detail makes it worse.Lately, it seems Bezos has been dismantling the Washington Post, one of the US’ premier journalistic institutions — putting British failure machine Will Lewis, known for his role in the UK phone-hacking scandal, in charge. Last year, the Post didn’t endorse a candidate in the US presidential race for the first time since 1960, resulting in more than 200,000 canceled subscriptions. Its stars have been fleeing in droves. (Ann Telnaes, who was driven to quit the Post after a cartoon making fun of Bezos was killed, recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her work. Oops!) Now, after all Bezos’ posturing about the free press, he’s cutting deals with people who murder journalists for saying inconvenient things. But maybe we should have seen that coming when he banned op-ed writers from opposing “free speech and the markets.” Does the freedom to assassinate count as one of the personal liberties Bezos claims to treasure?It’s all so spineless. I mean, we already know that MBS may have hacked Bezos’ phone, but I guess that’s water under the bridge. Or maybe not. Maybe MBS got something real good in that hack. Impossible to say whether this is motivated by kompromat or greed, I suppose. But whatever the motive, we know one thing: it takes five years for Bezos to go from posting his photo op with the headstone of a murdered reporter to making billion-dollar deals with his killer.See More:

The SoftBank CFO said OpenAI's planned restructuring with the nonprofit keeping control is something that was expected.