In January 2025 Donald Trump, OpenAI, and SoftBank present Stargate — with «immediate» funding of $100 billion and raising $500 billion. Now it is under threat, largely because of Trump’s policies.
In fact, active work on the project for «large-scale construction» data centers for artificial intelligence has stopped, and the first $100 billion has not yet been found. For more than three months, SoftBank has not been able to develop a project financing algorithm and start detailed negotiations with banks, private investors, and asset management companies. Preliminary negotiations with dozens of lenders have begun, but no deals have been concluded.
«President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policy has shortened» financial forecasts for artificial intelligence. According to sources, high capital spending has been stymied by lenders’ and debt investors’ concerns about dealing with high-risk rates, and fears about how a possible global recession could undermine demand for data centers,», — writes Bloomberg.
Interestingly, this story comes amidst a steady demand for AI and profits of related companies in the past and current quarters. The situation is complicated by the emergence of cheap AI models like DeepSeek and their impact on the long-term profitability of OpenAI-related projects. Also, according to TD Cowen, the cost of building a data center could increase by 5-15% due to the duties.
Almost immediately, in January, Trump’s political ally Elon Musk criticized Stargate in his own style. Then, in one of his tweets, he said: «SoftBank has significantly less than $10 billion in safe funds. I have reliable sources». It seems that Musk really knew something.
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