Elon Musk may be right about the funding for Stargate. If you haven’t heard of Stargate (likely because you pay attention to things that matter), it’s a company that “intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure [data centers] for OpenAI in the United States.”
It was launched Tuesday with a press event at the White House, leading the press to call it “Trump’s ambitious AI infrastructure venture.” While the president gave the project his blessing, he didn’t give it any government funding.
The event also featured Oracle CTO/Chairman/co-founder Larry Ellison, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, all partners in the venture. Of the three, Ellison is the only one running a company that currently makes money. However, Oracle is only on board as a technology partner. Son, who famously lost $14 billion funding WeWork, is in charge on the financial side.
Shortly after the project announcement, Musk tweeted (eXed?), “They don’t actually have the money. SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.” OpenAI shot back that it was planning to “deploy $100 million immediately.” Softbank and OpenAI are both “committing” $19 billion to Stargate, so there’s no reason to think the funds won’t be “deployed.”
To raise the rest of the money, Softbank will have to use “some combination of a massive fundraising effort, new debt or selling chunks of [the] company’s holdings,” according to The Wall Street Journal. One big question for investors: How will Stargate make money?
Now, this week’s round-up of AI-powered martech news and releases.
- Act-On Software finalized an agreement to be acquired by Banzai International. Act-On is an AI-powered marketing automation platform with an open data architecture designed to enhance marketing efforts for businesses. The platform offers intuitive tools for campaign management and customer engagement.
- PureCars added RylieAI to its AutoMiner CDP. RylieAI is aimed at helping automotive dealerships improve their customer outreach and operational efficiency.
- Equativ upgraded its curation platform, now renamed Maestro by Equativ. It centralizes programmatic campaign management and provides ad buyers with improved access to quality ad inventory. Key features include seamless integration with first-party data, cookieless targeting solutions advanced deal management tools for improved campaign outcomes.
- SundaySky launched the next generation of its AI-powered video platform. It now has AI avatars