(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump is expected to announce a new investment push for artificial intelligence led by Softbank Group Corp., OpenAI LLC and Oracle Corp., with the three companies preparing to announce a joint venture worth billions dollars.
Most read from Bloomberg
Trump will be joined by Softbank’s Masayoshi Son, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Oracle’s Larry Ellison to announce an initial $100 billion investment Tuesday afternoon — which could rise to $500 billion over the next four years — according to a White House official House.
Shares of Oracle rose about 6% on the news. The company’s shares are up about 56% in the past year. Softbank’s American depositary receipts rose as much as 5%.
Trump signals a broad approach to ensure American leadership in emerging technology. Two weeks before taking office, he announced a $20 billion investment from Dubai-based billionaire Hussain Sajwani for new data centers in the US. On Monday, shortly after being sworn in, he revoked the AI guardrails imposed by Joe Biden and signed a series of measures to boost U.S. energy development to meet rising energy demands from data centers.
The announcement was first reported by CBS News. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It’s unclear whether the initiative, which the companies are calling “Stargate,” is in addition to or part of the $100 billion that Son promised SoftBank would invest alone during an event with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate month.
At the time, Son said Softbank’s efforts would create 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence and related infrastructure, including investments in data centers, semiconductors and energy.
“I would very much like to celebrate President Trump’s great victory and my confidence in the United States economy has increased enormously with his victory,” Son said at the time.
Despite the public commitment, questions immediately arose about where SoftBank would source the capital to finance its initiative. The company had 3.8 trillion yen ($25 billion) of cash and equivalents on its balance sheet at the end of September. Still, the company’s finances have recovered with the initial public offering of chip design firm Arm Holdings Plc.