President Trump announced the Stargate AI project with Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank, investing $500B toward AI data centers in the US. First data centers are being built in Abilene, Texas, under the name "Project Ludicrous." The project involves Oracle, Cruso, and Lancium in a major push for AI infrastructure growth.
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President Donald Trump announced on Jan. 21, 2025, the formation of Stargate,
President Donald Trump announced on Jan. 21, 2025, the formation of Stargate, which is a joint venture artificial intelligence project between Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank, businessinsider.com reported. Trump pledged to spend $500 billion building artificial intelligence data centers in the United States.
And Oracle founder and CTO Larry Ellison, who was at the announcement with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, said the first Stargate data centers are under construction in Abilene, Texas, according to businessinsider.com.
"We've been working with OpenAI for a while and Masa for a while. The data centers are actually under construction — the first of them are under construction in Texas," Ellison said at the announcement. "Each building is a half-million sq. ft. There are 10 buildings currently being built, but that will expand to 20 and other locations beyond the Abilene location, which is our first location."
Other details about Stargate are sketchy, according to businessinsider.com, although registration forms filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation matching Ellison's description of Stargate offer some insight.
The development is registered as "Project Ludicrous" at an address attached to the Lancium Clean Campus, according to businessinsider.com. That's a 1,000-acre site in Abilene owned by energy tech company Lancium. Project Ludicrous' owner is listed as Abilene DC 1 LLC, an affiliate of data center development startup Crusoe.
According to Texas state comptroller's records, Oracle occupies the data center owned by Abilene DC 1 LLC at the Lancium Clean Campus in Abilene.
Construction on a building, a 482,000-sq.-ft. one-story "data hall" estimated to cost $292 million, began in June 2024 and is set for May 30, 2025, completion, according to businessinsider.com. The plans also call for a guard house, fire pump building and mechanical and electrical enclosures. A second filing from September 2024 indicates that tenant improvements costing $140 million began in December and are expected to be completed by Sept. 15, 2025.
A second building, a 484,960-sq.-ft. "1-story data center" also estimated at $292 million, began construction in September and is expected to be completed in one year, the filings said. Tenant improvements expected to be completed by Dec. 24, 2025, are estimated at $384 million, businessinsider.com reported.
Lancium originally struck a development deal with the city of Abilene in 2021 for the Lancium Clean Campus. The site was first for powering bitcoin mines with renewable energy generation, although that never happened, according to businessinsider.com.
In November, Crusoe announced a $3.4 billion data center development on the Lancium Clean Campus, according to businessinsider.com. It said it had already fully leased the space to a "Fortune 100 hyperscale tenant," with occupancy expected to begin in the first half of 2025.
"Lancium is excited to be building its Lancium Clean Campus in Abilene, Texas, in partnership with Crusoe and the Development Corporation of Abilene [DCOA] and to be at the forefront of the growth of the AI infrastructure industry in the U.S.," a spokesperson for Lancium wrote in response to a request for comment from Business Insider. The spokesperson said the company could not "provide any new commentary about Abilene or any of our other Clean Campuses."
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