(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump announced a joint venture to fund artificial intelligence infrastructure worth billions of dollars with the leaders of Softbank Group Corp., OpenAI LLC, and Oracle Corp., an effort aimed at speeding development of the emerging technology.
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“We’re starting off with tremendous investment coming into our country at levels that nobody’s really ever seen before,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday.
Trump was joined by Softbank’s Masayoshi Son, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison. The joint venture will deploy $100 billion “immediately” and have a goal of increasing to “at least” $500 billion in AI projects, including data centers and physical campuses, Son said. Companies including Microsoft Corp. and Nvidia Corp. are also expected to participate.
The president said he would use emergency declarations and executive action to help ease construction projects, including through easier access to energy. During their remarks, Trump and the executives highlighted potential applications for AI in health and other fields that would fuel US economic growth.
“AI holds incredible promise for all of us, for every American,” Ellison said.
Still, the actual scope of new commitments in the announcement remained unclear.
Son visited Mar-a-Lago just last month to announce that Softbank would spend $100 billion over the coming presidential term, and Tuesday’s announcement was drawn from that effort, according to a person familiar with the matter. Ellison said some of the data centers being considered for the project were already under construction, and OpenAI has also already extensively outlined plans to invest in AI infrastructure.
Over 400 shares in the S&P 500 rose during trading Tuesday, with the gauge up almost 1%, on expectations that Trump would unveil the new AI investment push. Oracle shares rose 7%, while a closely watched exchange-traded fund tracking companies with AI exposure hit a three-year high.
Trump has signaled a wide-ranging approach to ensure US leadership in AI. Two weeks before taking office, he announced a $20 billion investment from Dubai-based billionaire Hussain Sajwani for new data centers across the US. On Monday, shortly after his swearing-in, he rescinded AI guardrails imposed by Joe Biden and signed a series of measures to boost US energy development to meet a surge in power demand from data centers.
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