A recent update reveals that Stargate — the massive AI infrastructure initiative largely backed by OpenAI, Oracle and Lancium — has secured an additional US$ 600 million to build its first 1.2‑gigawatt data‑center campus in Abilene, Texas. The project is part of a broader plan that, in total, aims to marshal up to US$ 500 billion toward building a network of “AI factories.”
The campus under construction sits on 1,400 acres, with the first two buildings already operational (as of October 2025). Each building spans nearly 980,000 square feet and delivers 200 MW of capacity — together hosting tens of thousands of high‑performance GPUs (graphic‑processing units) designed specifically to support large‑scale AI training and inference workloads.
Stargate isn’t intended to remain a single site. The plan calls for expanding to multiple “AI factory” campuses across the U.S., as part of a coalition‑style infrastructure buildout aimed at meeting the skyrocketing compute demand from generative‑AI applications.
However, this ambitious scale brings significant challenges — especially on power and energy infrastructure. The operator has acknowledged that the existing power grid and transmission systems struggle with the rapid demand spikes typical of AI workloads. To address this, Stargate is investing in massive substations, renewable‑energy integrations (solar, wind), battery storage, and high‑voltage transmission — signalling how deeply the AI boom is reshaping energy and infrastructure needs.
