The Stargate Project has brought the global artificial intelligence race to the West Texas desert.

And on Sept. 23, it also brought a flock of industry leaders, U.S. congressmen, other policymakers and a gaggle of regional and news outlets.

All eyes are on the collaboration between OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank to construct data centers and other infrastructure to support the artificial intelligence boom. On Sept. 23, Stargate also announced it would also be building five additional data center sites across the country.

There are plans to build more capacity near the flagship Abilene site, as well as sites in two other Texas counties, Shackelford County and Milam County. Other locations include Doña Ana County, New Mexico, Lordstown, Ohio, and another soon-to-be-disclosed location in the Midwest.

The joint venture was first announced at the White House in January with President Donald Trump, as part of a broader push for investment in American AI infrastructure.

As the high-stakes international competition to develop and deploy the technology escalates, the companies are betting big on the $500 billion program, with AI kingpin NVIDIA recently joining the fray by investing $100 billion in OpenAI, it announced.

Locals chat about the data centers over their morning coffee downtown―and anyone who’s paying attention to anything relatively tied to the AI industry at least knows about Stargate, even if they can’t point Abilene out on a map.

“Texas is ground zero for AI,” U.S. Center Ted Cruz told a crowd. He praised the state’s availability of low-cost energy, open-for-business environment with low taxes and low regulations, and the way the state lionizes entrepreneurs.

“So in my view, Texas and tech and AI are a perfect match,” Cruz said.

Over 1,000 acres of high-tech

The campus, about 180 miles from Dallas, is on track to provide OpenAI with the world’s largest supercluster when fully built, according to Oracle.

The 1,100-acre campus will have eight near-identical buildings, totaling up to 4 million square feet and is expected to be fully completed around this time next year.

The buildings house servers filled with graphics processing units (GPUs). There are numerous metal boxes with blinking lights and wires of various sizes and color.

Fiber is being installed both below ground and above, tubes are designed to pump a cooling liquid using a closed-loop system. A lot of pieces work together to support the highly technical compute needs.

A portion of the campus is already operating on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure after Oracle began delivering the first NVIDIA GB200 racks in June. NVIDIA’s deal with OpenAI will build and deploy at least 10 gigawatts of AI data centers.

It’s surrounded by rugged scenery: red dirt kicked up by gusts of wind, rocky terrain and short trees. The Abilene skyline is visible through a few miles of hazy air. There are roadways throughout the campus, including a makeshift six-lane “highway,” to ease the traffic from roughly 6,400 workers traveling on and off the site alongside semi-trucks.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the Abilene campus is a fraction of what the partnership is building.

Even then, more infrastructure will still be needed to serve the demand of ChatGPT.

“We’ve got to make this investment,” Altman said. With global competition heating up between the U.S. and other major powers, ” … we cannot fall behind in the need to put the infrastructure together to make this revolution happen.”

Commitment to Abilene

The data centers being built at the new locations, which were selected among 300 proposals from more than 30 states, drive Stargate ahead of schedule to secure a full $500 billion, 10 gigawatt commitment by the end of the year.

“We’re really focused on enabling AI to have all the compute capacity needs,” new co-CEO of Oracle, Clay Magouyrk said.

Abilene Mayor Clay Weldon Hurt said his city is steeped in tradition, and acknowledged there is a mix of feelings among local residents. However, the town is open to progress, he added.

“I have a commitment to our citizens of Abilene to make Abilene a better place, and we have that commitment to grow,” Hurt said.

“So, even though we’re very proud of our heritage, and we’re always going to be proud of that heritage, we’re always going to be open [for business], and we’re so excited that this opportunity has come to Abilene, and we welcome it.”

Sen. Cruz called Stargate an impressive start, but encouraged more building and hiring.

“This is the beginning of a long-term effort to invest in American jobs, supply the additional power needed for AI, and deliver products and services that will benefit all Americans,” he said.

2025 The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Tech companies including WhatsApp and Reddit as well as streaming giant Twitch and gaming firm Roblox could be among more than a dozen sites added to Australia’s social media ban for under-16s, the country’s regulator said Wednesday.

Platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube were already included in the ban—a world-first.

But the head of Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has written to 16 more companies to “self-assess” whether they fall under the ban’s remit.

The list also included Pinterest as well as Lego Play, streaming company Kick and gaming platform Steam.

Companies will need to make a case if they believe their platform should be exempt from the ban, the national broadcaster ABC said.

Inman Grant told the network that while some cases were “pretty clear,” the regulator would “give them the due diligence process.”

“We need to hear them all out,” she said.

The regulator said it will initially focus on platforms with the greatest number of users, where there are higher risks of harm.

A Roblox spokesperson insisted the platform was not a social media company and therefore did not qualify for the ban.

“We prohibit users from uploading real-world photos or video, or re-sharing news, and we do not offer social media feeds within experiences in Australia,” the spokesperson told AFP.

“We completed the self-assessment process and communicated to eSafety that our position remains that we are an exempted online gaming platform,” they added.

‘Vague’ regulations

Australia has been a leader in global efforts to prevent internet harm, but current legislation offers almost no details on how the ban will be enforced—prompting concern among experts that it will simply be a symbolic piece of unenforceable legislation.

The eSafety Commission will be able to fine social media companies up to Aus$49.5 million ($32.6 million) for failing to comply with the rules.

Social media companies have described the laws as “vague,” “problematic” and “rushed.”

Canberra has struggled to pin down how precisely platforms will verify the ages of their users.

This month, Communications Minister Anika Wells conceded that firms would need to self-regulate.

An independent study ordered by the Australian government found this month that age checking can be done “privately, efficiently and effectively,” though it admitted no single solution would fit all contexts.

The regulator has also introduced a number of rules taking effect in Australia in the coming months to protect children from “lawful but awful” content, including online pornography and AI chatbots capable of sexually explicit conversations.

This month, Roblox agreed to curb the risk of adults grooming children on its platform in Australia.

© 2025 AFP

Digital Catapult is doubling down on its efforts to support UK businesses in the successful adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, with its latest startup accelerator programme targeting the agrifood sector.

The organisation’s 14-week accelerator programme is made up of nine AI-first startups tasked with solving specific challenges in the agrifood sector, such as working out ways to accurately forecast cattle milk volumes and optimise feed schedules.

“The UK’s agrifood supply chain is highly complex and this new intervention will support the drive for greater digital supply chain resilience and adoption of deep tech applications, including biomass condition management, dairy forecasting and plant disease detection,” said Digital Catapult, in a statement.

The nine participating startups include manufacturing sector-focused cloud technology provider Rubik, which will be trialling its Data Mule business intelligence platform during the programme.

Another participant is Barefoot Lightning, which will feed data from farmers into its platform to boost production quality and cut carbon emissions, while fellow participant Fiscrop will develop a modelling tool to improve disease management and feed efficiency.

Crop Intellect is also taking part in the accelerator, and will focus on developing a monitoring, reporting and verification system to assist with the scaling up of its nitrogen dioxide removal offering.  

Carbon Rewild will be using the accelerator to test an AI bird classifier, while Wilder Sensing will be championing a technology that can validate habitat classifications and improve environmental impact assessments. 

Meanwhile, Data Dynamics will be using geospatial monitoring to test and validate capabilities on cocoa farming data in West Africa, and Mozaic Earth will seek to scale its smartphone-enabled Scope 3 emissions reporting tool.

The final programme participant is FarmSmarter, which is building a tool to aid the early detection of cocoa swollen shoot virus in West Africa to accelerate crop disease diagnoses in low-connectivity regions.  

Digital Catapult has collaborated with a host of companies working in this space, including Nestlé, Dale Farm, Hartpury Digital Innovation Farm and Peacock Technology, to define the challenges the accelerator’s participants will need to solve.

Jessica Rushworth, chief partnerships officer at Digital Catapult, said working closely with the likes of Nestle and Dale Farm on the programme is critical to the success of the accelerator itself.

“What underpins the importance of this intervention is the need to ensure that agrifood businesses will be future-ready and as adaptable as possible to fluctuating yields and unprecedented environmental challenges like we’ve seen this year,” said Rushworth.

“Critical to the continued success of this programme is effective collaboration and partnership … to jointly demonstrate how AI can help to solve some of the sector’s most significant challenges and ensure continued growth in the years to come.”  

AI is revolutionising the food sector by transforming vast data streams into actionable insights – tracking regenerative farming, predicting disease outbreaks and integrating digital tools into cohesive systems