Oracle and OpenAI drop Texas data center expansion plan, Bloomberg News reports
March 6 (Reuters) - Oracle and OpenAI have abandoned plans to expand a flagship artificial intelligence data center in Texas after negotiations dragged over financing and OpenAI's changing needs, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The plan is part of the Stargate initiative, a project of up to $500 billion and 10 gigawatts that includes SoftBank Group 9984.T, OpenAI and Oracle ORCL.N. It was announced by U.S. President Donald Trump in January 2025.
In September, the companies had announced plans for an additional potential expansion of 600 megawatts near the flagship Stargate site in Abilene, Texas.
That capacity will now be fulfilled at one of the other data center campuses being built, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.
The Abilene site has eight buildings, which will be operated by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and two of them are already up and running, the source added. OpenAI and Oracle's plan to develop another 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity remains on track.
Technology companies have been pouring billions of dollars into data centers to power generative AI services such as ChatGPT and Copilot, which require huge amounts of computing power.
The collapsed talks between Oracle and OpenAI created an opening for Meta Platforms META.O to step in and consider leasing the planned expansion site in Abilene, Texas, from developer Crusoe, according to the Bloomberg News report. Nvidia NVDA.O helped facilitate the discussions.
Oracle and OpenAI are using Nvidia's AI semiconductors at the Stargate site, and the chip designer stepped in to make sure its products, rather than those of competitor Advanced Micro Devices AMD.O, would be used to power the expanded data center, the report said.
Meta declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. OpenAI and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Related Articles
Is the Market No Longer ‘Buying Asia’? Why Asian Stocks Face Selloff Amid US-Iran Conflict While US Stocks Become a Safe Haven?
Has the "Sell US, Buy Asia" trade, once prevalent at the beginning of the year, now become obsolete? Will the U.S.-Iran conflict fundamentally reverse the robust 2026 rally in emerging markets?
Is the Market No Longer ‘Buying Asia’? Why Asian Stocks Face Selloff Amid US-Iran Conflict While US Stocks Become a Safe Haven?
Has the "Sell US, Buy Asia" trade, once prevalent at the beginning of the year, now become obsolete? Will the U.S.-Iran conflict fundamentally reverse the robust 2026 rally in emerging markets?Investing in GameStop 2026: Holding Company Transformation or Just More Hype?
Although GameStop still has physical stores, it is predominantly looking to buy/build out new businesses that can expand more quickly than it is shrinking traditional video game retail stores, which are going to disappear.
It’s Not Gold Soaring; It’s Paper Money Shrinking: Measuring Gold with Five Real-World Yardsticks
TradingKey – Want to know where gold’s true level really is? This article measures it against stocks, the US dollar, housing, oil and even burgers to show where its price really stands today.
2026 Evolution of Global Payment Industry Landscape: PayPal’s Defensive Transformation and the Rise of AI Agent Settlement Infrastructure
An in-depth analysis of 2026 PayPal M&A rumors and Stripe competitive insights, exploring fundamental transformations in stablecoin settlement within the AI Agent era. Incorporating the latest earnings data from Circle (CRCL) and Block (SQ), this report provides investors with deep value analysis of the U.S. fintech sector and logical deductions for digital clearing frameworks.
