Donald Trump’s first days in the White House have been extremely eventful. Regarding artificial intelligence, the U.S. government has announced that it will push forward with the Stargate project from OpenAI, SoftBank (the Japanese multinational and one of the most well-connected tech investors worldwide), and Oracle (a leading data center provider, now finding that AI places it at the forefront of the industry).
In total, both Trump’s administration and the three companies will invest up to $500 billion to build an AI infrastructure in the country. The initial funding round will be $100 billion, all with a clear objective: to close the gap with China in this field.
“We want this technology to remain in our country. China is a competitor and, in the future of technology, we want it to stay here. China is a competitor, and there are others too. We want it here”, Donald Trump remarked at the White House.
Both on its social media channels and on its website, OpenAI also discussed this agreement. According to the organization, AI development will benefit all humanity:
“We all hope to continue building and developing AI (and specifically AGI) for the benefit of all humanity. We believe this new step is crucial, and it will allow creative people to discover how to use AI to improve humankind.”
Additionally, as part of the Stargate project, Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will collaborate closely to build and operate this computing system. This is based on a long-standing collaboration between OpenAI and NVIDIA dating back to 2016, and a more recent partnership between OpenAI and Oracle.
If the goal was to develop artificial intelligence in the United States, all these players were bound to reach an understanding. Now, we will have to watch their moves closely to see if they achieve their goals, catch up to China in this area, and make breakthroughs that improve daily life—or even advance scientific research such as cancer cures, something Trump also mentioned.
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