OpenAI taps TX for data center, eyes 16 other states as global competition heats up
The global battle for the future of artificial intelligence has begun in Texas.
OpenAI is expanding its push to construct data centers as a $500 billion “Stargate” initiative with the U.S. government takes shape. Work in Abilene is already underway as part of its joint venture with Oracle and Softbank, OpenAI said in a call on Thursday.
The cost and specifics of the facility were not immediately disclosed.
Meanwhile, the maker of ChatGPT technology is weighing at least 16 future locations that are expected to flourish across the country, including Arizona, California, New York, Pennsylvania and Utah. Each campus will be able to generate at least 1 gigawatt of capacity and will be linked.
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However, the Abilene site is seen as the linchpin of a massive infrastructure buildout, adding to the Dallas-Fort Worth area’s economic momentum.
The city is the immediate beneficiary of a tranche of the four-year, $500 billion master plan that’s expected to buttress the regional economy.
In ways big and small, data centers are starting to pepper the DFW landscape, with Magnum Economics estimating they generated more than $3.2 billion in state and local tax revenues last year. More projects are expected to reap an additional $3.7 billion in the near-term, the firm estimates.
OpenAI’s ambitious data center buildout will also shape the emerging AI competition between the U.S. and China ― which shook global markets last week with the launch of DeepSeek, a cheaper ChatGPT competitor.
“This is a very real competition and the stakes could not be bigger,” Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s vice president of global affairs, told reporters on a call. The winner “will shape the world going forward,” and offer a stark choice between open technology and “autocratic” alternatives, he added.
The Lone Star state is seen as crucial because OpenAI’s team was “blown away” by the state’s individual dynamism, and efforts to support emerging and strategically-important technology, Lehane said.
Texas is “certainly thinking big, acting big…and a flagship of where Stargate will do a lot of its work.”
Yet Stargate has been openly lambasted by Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and world’s richest man who’s emerged as President Donald Trump’s majordomo for government efficiency.
Musk has publicly trolled OpenAI’s role in Stargate, with a long-running feud between Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spilling into the open. Their antipathy has its origins in a lawsuit over control of OpenAI, which Musk co-founded.
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