SoftBank Group’s $375 million acquisition of Foxconn Technology’s electric vehicle plant in Ohio just might help jump-start the stalled efforts of Project Stargate.
That $500 billion woebegone data center project among SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle Corp., and others has been beset by a trickle of funding and a lack of buzz since it was announced by President Donald Trump at the White House amid much fanfare. More troubling, the companies have yet to create a financial blueprint for Stargate. And on Thursday, SoftBank Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto admitted it was taking longer than anticipated to get Stargate off the ground.
Foxconn would operate the plant and use the site for its own artificial intelligence (AI) server manufacturing business, Bloomberg News reported. The Ohio facility may be used to host a data center.
SoftBank approached Foxconn, known for its work as a supplier to Apple Inc. and formally known as Hon Hai Precision, with a plan to establish data centers and related infrastructure across the U.S., Bloomberg reported.
Foxconn and SoftBank were not immediately available for comment.
The two companies have worked together before, teaming on SoftBank’s humanoid Pepper robots a decade ago. Earlier this year, they formed a venture to establish a data center and manufacturing hub in the U.S., with each investing $735 million. It is not clear if SoftBank’s investment in the venture includes the $375 million for the EV plant, according to Bloomberg.
When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son joined President Trump to announce Stargate, they vowed to start deploying $100 billion “immediately” and scale the investment to about $500 billion.
But it has been slow going for the project. SoftBank is scouting potential sites to serve as a flagship for the massive project, based on their access to water, power, and telecom networks, according to Bloomberg’s report.
In the interim, OpenAI has plowed forward with other data centers under the Stargate brand. The first project in Abilene, Texas, was on track before Trump’s announcement or SoftBank’s involvement.
SoftBank was not involved in plans for a large Stargate data center in Norway, where OpenAI would be the primary customer. OpenAI’s Stargate project also includes a 5-gigawatt data center complex in Abu Dhabi.
