Latest news with #StargateProject
Mint
2 days ago
- Business
- Mint
SoftBank Swings to Profit on Nvidia Bet Ahead of Big AI Campaign
(Bloomberg) -- SoftBank Group Corp. swung to a profit in the June quarter, bolstered by gains in its holdings including Nvidia Corp. and Coupang Inc., in a boost for founder Masayoshi Son's planned bets on artificial intelligence technologies. The Tokyo-based company reported net income of ¥421.82 billion ($2.9 billion) in its fiscal first quarter, versus the average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg of ¥158.23 billion. The Vision Fund logged a ¥451.39 billion profit. Son is doubling down on bets geared to help him capitalize on booming investment in AI hardware. As part of that shift in focus, SoftBank has been building stakes in Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. among others, while selling off less relevant assets. SoftBank increased its stake in Nvidia to more than $3 billion as of end-March, helping the Japanese investor benefit from the AI accelerator maker's 46% rally during the three months through June. US President Donald Trump's threat to unleash 100% chip tariffs but exempt companies moving production to America is infusing optimism for SoftBank's $500 billion Stargate data center foray with OpenAI and Oracle. That nudged the Japanese company's stock up around 1.5% on Thursday, putting it on track to pass a record high it hit the day before. 'Our longer-term outlook for SoftBank Group is cautiously optimistic, with a consensus toward continued business expansion,' said Ashwin Binwani, founder of Alpha Binwani Capital. 'We are prepared for volatility and see it as a buy-the-dip opportunity.' The 67-year-old SoftBank founder seeks to play a more central role in the spread of AI through sweeping partnerships such as Stargate and a planned $30 billion investment in OpenAI. Son is also courting TSMC and others about taking part in a $1 trillion AI manufacturing hub in Arizona. But concern over whether SoftBank can manage multiple mass-scale funding needs as interest rates inch up is keeping its stock at a significant discount to the total net asset value of its holdings. Some of the conversations behind Stargate have slowed due to market volatility, uncertainty around US trade policy and questions around the financial valuations of AI hardware, Bloomberg News reported in May. 'Key points to consider in assessing SoftBank include whether investment in the Stargate Project involving AI infrastructure in the US will progress; whether additional investment in OpenAI amid a fluid management situation is tenable,' SMBC Nikko Securities analyst Satoru Kikuchi wrote in a note earlier this year. --With assistance from Aya Wagatsuma. More stories like this are available on
Atlantic
24-07-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
Donald Trump's Gift to AI Companies
Earlier today, Donald Trump unveiled his administration's 'AI Action Plan'—a document that details, in 23 pages, the president's 'vision of global AI dominance' and offers a road map for America to achieve it. The upshot? AI companies such as OpenAI and Nvidia must be allowed to move as fast as they can. As the White House officials Michael Kratsios, David Sacks, and Marco Rubio wrote in the plan's introduction, 'Simply put, we need to 'Build, Baby, Build!'' The action plan is the direct result of an executive order, signed by Trump in the first week of his second term, that directed the federal government to produce a plan to 'enhance America's global AI dominance.' For months, the Trump administration solicited input from AI firms, civil-society groups, and everyday citizens. OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, and Microsoft issued extensive recommendations. The White House is clearly deferring to the private sector, which has close ties to the Trump administration. On his second day in office, Trump, along with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, announced the Stargate Project, a private venture that aims to build hundreds of billions of dollars worth of AI infrastructure in the United States. Top tech executives have made numerous visits to the White House and Mar-a-Lago, and Trump has reciprocated with praise. Kratsios, who advises the president on science and technology, used to work at Scale AI and, well before that, at Peter Thiel's investment firm. Sacks, the White House's AI and crypto czar, was an angel investor for Facebook, Palantir, and SpaceX. During today's speech about the AI Action Plan, Trump lauded several tech executives and investors, and credited the AI boom to 'the genius and creativity of Silicon Valley.' At times, the action plan itself comes across as marketing from the tech industry. It states that AI will augur 'an industrial revolution, an information revolution, and a renaissance—all at once.' And indeed, many companies were happy: 'Great work,' Kevin Weil, OpenAI's chief product officer, wrote on X of the AI Action Plan. 'Thank you President Trump,' wrote Collin McCune, the head of government affairs at the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. 'The White House AI Action Plan gets it right on infrastructure, federal adoption, and safety coordination,' Anthropic wrote on its X account. 'It reflects many policy aims core to Anthropic.' (The Atlantic and OpenAI have a corporate partnership.) In a sense, the action plan is a bet. AI is already changing a number of industries, including software engineering, and a number of scientific disciplines. Should AI end up producing incredible prosperity and new scientific discoveries, then the AI Action Plan may well get America there faster simply by removing any roadblocks and regulations, however sensible, that would slow the companies down. But should the technology prove to be a bubble—AI products remain error-prone, extremely expensive to build, and unproven in many business applications—the Trump administration is more rapidly pushing us toward the bust. Either way, the nation is in Silicon Valley's hands. The action plan has three major 'pillars': enhancing AI innovation, developing more AI infrastructure, and promoting American AI. To accomplish these goals, the administration will seek to strip away federal and state regulations on AI development while also making it easier and more financially viable to build data centers and energy infrastructure. Trump also signed executive orders to expedite permitting for AI projects and export American AI products abroad. The White House's specific ideas for removing what it describes as 'onerous regulations' and 'bureaucratic red tape' are sweeping. For instance, the AI Action Plan recommends that the federal government review Federal Trade Commission investigations or orders from the Biden administration that 'unduly burden AI innovation,' perhaps referencing investigations into potentially monopolistic AI investments and deceptive AI advertising. The document also suggests that federal agencies reduce AI-related funding to states with regulatory environments deemed unfriendly to AI. (For instance, a state might risk losing funding if it has a law that requires AI firms to open themselves up to extensive third-party audits of their technology.) As for the possible environmental tolls of AI development—the data centers chatbots run on consume huge amounts of water and electricity —the AI Action Plan waves them away. The road map suggests streamlining or reducing a number of environmental regulations, such as standards in the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act—which would require evaluating pollution from AI infrastructure—in order to accelerate construction. Once the red tape is gone, the Trump administration wants to create a 'dynamic, 'try-first' culture for AI across American industry.' In other words, build and test out AI products first, and then determine if those products are actually helpful—or if they pose any risks. The plan outlines policies to encourage both private and public adoption of AI in a number of domains: scientific discovery, health care, agriculture, and basically any government service. In particular, the plan stresses, 'the United States must aggressively adopt AI within its Armed Forces if it is to maintain its global military preeminence'—in line with how nearly every major AI firm has begun developing military offerings over the past year. Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced contracts worth up to $200 million each with OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI. All of this aligns rather neatly with the broader AI industry's goals. Companies want to build more energy infrastructure and data centers, deploy AI more widely, and fast-track innovation. Several of OpenAI's recommendations to the AI Action Plan—including 'categorical exclusions' from environmental policy for AI-infrastructure construction, limits on state regulations, widespread federal procurement of AI, and 'sandboxes' for start-ups to freely test AI—closely echo the final document. Also this week, Anthropic published a policy document titled 'Building AI in America' with very similar suggestions for building AI infrastructure, such as 'slashing red tape' and partnering with the private sector. Permitting reform and more investments in energy supply, keystones of the final plan, were also the central asks of Google and Microsoft. The regulations and safety concerns the AI Action Plan does highlight, although important, all dovetail with efforts that AI firms are already undertaking; there's nothing here that would seriously slow Silicon Valley down. Trump gestured toward other concessions to the AI industry in his speech. He specifically targeted intellectual-property laws, arguing that training AI models on copyrighted books and articles does not infringe upon copyright because the chatbots, like people, are simply learning from the content. This has been a major conflict in recent years, with more than 40 related lawsuits filed against AI companies since 2022. (The Atlantic is suing the AI company Cohere, for example.) If courts were to decide that training AI models with copyrighted material is against the law, it would be a major setback for AI companies. In their official recommendations for the AI Action Plan, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google all requested a copyright exception, known as 'fair use,' for AI training. Based on his statements, Trump appears to strongly agree with this position, although the AI Action Plan itself does not reference copyright and AI training. Also sprinkled throughout the AI Action Plan are gestures toward some MAGA priorities. Notably, the policy states that the government will contract with only AI companies whose models are 'free from top-down ideological bias'—a reference to Sacks's crusade against 'woke' AI—and that a federal AI-risk-management framework should 'eliminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change.' Trump signed a third executive order today that, in his words, will eliminate 'woke, Marxist lunacy' from AI models. The plan also notes that the U.S. 'must prevent the premature decommissioning of critical power generation resources,' likely a subtle nod to Trump's suggestion that coal is a good way to power data centers. Looming over the White House's AI agenda is the threat of Chinese technology getting ahead. The AI Action Plan repeatedly references the importance of staying ahead of Chinese AI firms, as did the president's speech: 'We will not allow any foreign nation to beat us; our nation will not live in a planet controlled by the algorithms of the adversaries,' Trump declared. The worry is that advanced AI models could give China economic, military, and diplomatic dominance over the world—a fear that OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and several other AI firms have added to. But whatever happens on the international stage, hundreds of millions of Americans will feel more and more of generative AI's influence—on salaries and schools, air quality and electricity costs, federal services and doctor's offices. AI companies have been granted a good chunk of their wish list; if anything, the industry is being told that it's not moving fast enough. Silicon Valley has been given permission to accelerate, and we're all along for the ride.
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Broadcom Stock Sank Today
Key Points Broadcom stock sold off today as investors got some bad news about Stargate Project's $500 billion AI infrastructure build-out. Stargate has reportedly gotten off to a significantly slower-than-expected start. 10 stocks we like better than Broadcom › Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) stock closed out Tuesday's trading in the red. The tech company's share price fell 3.3% in a session that saw the S&P 500 battle back to be flat with yesterday's level and the Nasdaq Composite dip 0.4%. Stocks opened lower this morning as tech-sector valuation concerns weighed on major indexes, but there was a significant recovery in the afternoon following news that the U.S. and the Philippines have reached a trade agreement. In addition to some volatility for the broader market, Broadcom stock was pushed lower following news that a large artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure build-out wasn't coming together as quickly as anticipated. Broadcom stock fell as investors got bad news about Stargate The Wall Street Journal published a report today stating that the Stargate Project AI infrastructure company funded by Softbank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX was getting off to a slow start. The partners have pledged $500 billion in funding to build data centers and other AI infrastructure over the next four years, but things are moving slower than anticipated -- and the scope of near-term expansion plans has been narrowed. Broadcom's networking and connectivity chips and other hardware help support advanced AI processors from Nvidia and other providers, and it's been a huge beneficiary of the AI boom. Even with today's pullback, the company's share price is up 67.5% over the last three months and 786% over the last five years. What's next for Broadcom? If Stargate Project's scaling takes longer than expected to materialize, it could mean slower-than-expected growth for Broadcom. The company's positions in connectivity hardware and software services remain strong, and its long-term outlook is promising, but Stargate represents a significant source of potential sales for the business. So long as the tech partners move forward with the previously announced plans, some delays shouldn't hurt Broadcom too much -- but the situation is worth keeping an eye on. Should you buy stock in Broadcom right now? Before you buy stock in Broadcom, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Broadcom wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $665,092!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,050,477!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,055% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025 Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Why Broadcom Stock Sank Today was originally published by The Motley Fool
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
23-07-2025
- Business
- First Post
No takers for Trump's $500 bn data centre project; unveiled in Jan, Stargate has completed no deal
The Stargate Project launched with presidential fanfare and billion-dollar pledges, but six months later, it has no data centres and little to show for its promise read more (File) An aerial view shows construction underway on a Project Stargate AI infrastructure site, a collaboration between three large tech companies – OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle - in Abilene, Texas, US, April 23, 2025. Reuters In January this year, the Stargate Project emerged with a sweeping promise: a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure intended to cement US dominance in artificial intelligence, create hundreds of thousands of jobs and serve national security. Spearheaded by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX—launched with great fanfare at the White House alongside President Donald Trump—the initiative was positioned as the most ambitious tech infrastructure plan in American history. But six months on, the ambitious programme has yet to secure a single major data centre deal, according to The Wall Street Journal. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Early pledges, delayed action At its inception, Stargate projected a rapid deployment of $100 billion and plans for 10 gigawatts of computing capacity spread across multiple massive data centres. However, insiders now say those goals have been drastically scaled back, The Wall Street Journal report said. The new, much-reduced target involves the construction of a single, smaller facility—possibly in Ohio by the end of 2025. The delay stems from disagreements between the project's lead partners, OpenAI and SoftBank, especially over where to locate the data centres and how to implement them. Conflicting visions between partners While both companies publicly maintain a united front, tensions reportedly simmer behind the scenes. Sam Altman of OpenAI and Masayoshi Son of SoftBank have diverged on key elements, including site selection and whether to rely on SoftBank-backed SB Energy properties. OpenAI has pressed ahead on other infrastructure deals independently, most notably a separate arrangement with Oracle that bypasses SoftBank altogether. That deal alone involves building 4.5 gigawatts of data centre capacity, triple what Stargate was expected to deliver in the near term. OpenAI finds alternative routes Even as Stargate stalls, OpenAI has not slowed its pursuit of infrastructure expansion. Its partnership with Oracle includes massive power and compute capabilities spread across US locations, reportedly consuming as much energy as two Hoover Dams. Coupled with earlier agreements like one with CoreWeave, OpenAI has already nearly matched the 5 gigawatts of capacity initially tied to Stargate's $100 billion rollout. This suggests OpenAI is building its AI infrastructure with or without Stargate's formal structure in place. SoftBank's high stakes gamble Masayoshi Son remains committed to the vision, despite Stargate's stumbling start. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Japanese billionaire say he is still bullish on OpenAI and even interested in increasing his investment. Earlier this year, SoftBank committed a record-setting $30 billion to OpenAI—a move that pushed the company to sell assets and take on additional debt. For Son, the Stargate project is not just a financial venture but a strategic attempt to finally cement SoftBank's relevance in the AI revolution after missing early bets on major players like OpenAI and facing high profile failures in other sectors. Elon Musk recently weighed in on the project's faltering momentum. Responding to social media speculation about the delays, Musk remarked, 'They simply don't,' referencing earlier claims that SoftBank lacks the necessary funds. Musk had previously suggested that SoftBank had secured less than $10 billion of the $500 billion required—a claim that reignited debate over the project's financial grounding. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Public posturing versus private realities In a recent SoftBank event, both Son and Altman made a public appearance via video, reaffirming their commitment to building 10 gigawatts of AI data centres. Altman described it as a 'wonderful partnership,' and both parties issued a joint statement promising that they were 'moving at hyperscale and speed'. However, such optimistic messaging contrasts with the reality that, as of mid-2025, Stargate has not finalised even one major data centre agreement. From acquiring land and energy to sourcing high-performance chips and managing financing, the process is slow and capital-intensive. Stargate's own teams are said to be evaluating new, lower-cost designs for their proposed Ohio facility, but no formal construction has begun. Oracle's CEO Safra Catz confirmed on a recent investor call that Stargate had not yet been formally established as a legal entity, casting further doubt on its operational status. Political spotlight President Trump's administration had touted Stargate as a symbol of America's resurgence in technological leadership. With its White House launch, the project was strategically positioned to highlight Trump's commitment to economic growth, innovation and job creation. But the delays in execution are now raising questions about the project's feasibility. Despite repeated assurances of urgency, Stargate's progress does not appear to align with the administration's timelines or rhetoric. The Trump administration has even declared a national energy emergency to remove regulatory barriers. Yet Stargate, meant to be the flagship of this national push, has not delivered as expected. A vanishing dream? While Stargate's immediate ambitions have shrunk dramatically, those involved insist the long-term vision remains intact. OpenAI, for its part, continues to emphasise the need for large-scale investment in compute infrastructure, describing it as essential for advancing toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). Some elements of the original vision have taken shape albeit outside Stargate's framework. In Abilene, Texas, where Oracle and OpenAI have already begun development, Nvidia AI hardware has been delivered and early-stage training is underway. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The site has generated thousands of construction and support jobs, offering a glimpse of what Stargate aspired to achieve. Yet these successes are largely independent of SoftBank exposing the fragmentation of what was once pitched as a unified mega-project. Stargate was conceived as a moonshot, combining public support, private capital and cutting-edge technology to catapult the US into AI supremacy. Six months later, the reality appears far messier. Whether Stargate eventually fulfills its bold promise remains unclear. The venture, for now, stands as a symbol of the tension between a much-touted ambition and the slow, tangled grind of implementation.
Globe and Mail
23-07-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Why Micron Stock Sank Today
Key Points Micron stock fell today after it was reported that the Stargate Project's data center build-out is off to a slow start. Stargate has said that $500 billion will be invested in U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure over a four-year period, but it may be significantly behind schedule. Micron's high-bandwidth-memory chips position it to benefit from the Stargate initiative, but delays could hurt its near-term growth. 10 stocks we like better than Micron Technology › Micron (NASDAQ: MU) stock moved lower in Tuesday's trading -- a session that saw significant swings for major indexes. The company's share price fell 3.4% in the day's trading and had been down as much as 4.5% shortly after the market opened. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) rallied back from significant early sell-offs to end the day roughly in line with yesterday's close, and the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) slipped 0.4%. Micron faced selling action today following a Wall Street Journal report that said that the Stargate Project's $500 billion artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure initiative had run into challenges. Even though the broader market saw recovery in the afternoon on news that the U.S. has reached a trade agreement with the Philippines, the memory chip specialist's valuation was kept in the red by the Stargate news. A slow start for Stargate could hurt Micron In January, the CEOs of SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle announced the Stargate Project alongside President Trump at the White House. Stargate is a new joint investment venture between the three companies and MGX, and the partners plan on investing $500 billion to build data centers and other AI infrastructure across Trump's first term. At the time of the announcement, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said that 10 data centers were already under construction -- but the WSJ' s report today suggested that only one small data center is expected to be built this year. Micron is expected to be a beneficiary of the big data center build-out and could see softer growth due to delays. What's next for Micron? Micron's high-bandwidth-memory (HBM) solutions have become central to the bullish valuation thesis for the stock. Its memory chips are used in Nvidia 's graphics processing units (GPUs) and other data center hardware for AI. While delays for Stargate's data center build-outs shouldn't crush Micron's results, they could mean that growth winds up coming in significantly below previous expectations. Investors shouldn't panic just yet, but the Stargate situation is a significant one for Micron. Should you invest $1,000 in Micron Technology right now? Before you buy stock in Micron Technology, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Micron Technology wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $665,092!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,050,477!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,055% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025
