On Wednesday (October 23) local time, OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers, a hyperscale data center park provider, jointly announced that they will build a data center park in Port Washington, Wisconsin, as part of the "Stargate" project, aiming to maintain a leading position in the global artificial intelligence competition.
The project is part of the artificial intelligence infrastructure plan announced by OpenAI and Oracle in July. At that time, the two companies officially announced an agreement to develop 4.5 GW of additional data center capacity in the United States to further expand cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence infrastructure.
This new project in Wisconsin, called Lighthouse, involves the construction of four cutting-edge data centers, which will provide approximately 1,000 megawatts (1 gigawatt) of computing power to support artificial intelligence computing. It is expected to be completed in 2028.
The project is expected to create more than 4,000 jobs during the construction phase and more than 1,000 permanent jobs and thousands of temporary jobs once completed.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that the project will use 100% zero-emission energy. It is reported that Vantage is promoting the development of new zero-emission energy capacity in Wisconsin, including solar, wind and battery storage. 70% of the energy capacity will be allocated to the Lighthouse campus, while 30% will be provided to all consumers in Wisconsin, and the remaining energy consumption of the campus will be equivalently matched through the purchase of renewable energy annually.
"Stargate"
Participants in the "Stargate" program include Japanese technology companies SoftBank Group, OpenAI, Oracle, Microsoft and other technology companies. In September this year, OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank jointly announced that they would build five new artificial intelligence data centers in the United States. The total investment in the next three years is expected to exceed US$400 billion. The computing power scale is expected to be close to 7 gigawatts, and the ultimate goal will be expanded to 10 gigawatts.
Specifically, OpenAI and Oracle will build three new sites in Shackelford County, Texas, Doña Ana County, New Mexico, and an undisclosed location in the Midwest of the United States; while OpenAI, SoftBank and its affiliates will build two more sites in Lordstown, Ohio, and Milam County, Texas.
Coupled with OpenAI's first site up and running in Abilene, Texas, and its partnership with CoreWeave, the entire "Stargate" plan is expected to achieve nearly 7 gigawatts of computing power in the next three years.
Regarding this new data center project in Port Washington, Wisconsin, OpenAI Vice President of Industrial Computing Peter Hoeschele noted, "Expanding Stargate to Wisconsin is another important step toward building the infrastructure that will help ensure everyone can benefit from artificial intelligence. This project will create good jobs, advance zero-emission energy, and boost the local economy while expanding capacity without raising rates for local consumers."
Mahesh Thiagarajan, executive vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, said, "We will continue to rapidly expand our cloud capacity to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence. Oracle's high-performance, secure and cost-effective artificial intelligence infrastructure is driving a new era of innovation, which will solidify the United States' leadership in the global artificial intelligence field."