Inside Stargate AI’s massive Texas data center campus, with 5 more sites announced

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.