Stargate is supposed to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure, President Trump said. But Elon Musk suggested that the venture had much less cash.

Tech giants are backing a massive effort, announced by President Trump and dubbed the Stargate Project, to add data centers across the U.S.

President Donald Trump talked up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to AI by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.

One further force promoting AI innovation could be defence spending. America puts only a tiny fraction of its $850bn defence budget into AI. Silicon Valley executives hope that the Trump administration will allow more participation by startups building AI weapons and systems in the competition for defence contracts.

Stargate — the joint venture between OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle — is starting its AI infrastructure plans with 10 data centers in Texas.