Washington Washington. Microsoft said on Tuesday it has changed some key terms of the deal with OpenAI, as the ChatGPT maker forms a joint venture with Oracle and Japan's SoftBank Group to build up to $500 billion of new AI data centers in the United States. The venture is announced.
President Donald Trump gathered leaders of the “Stargate” effort at the White House on Tuesday to announce the deal, which he said is aimed at helping China and other rivals stay ahead of the global AI race by using Nvidia's chips. Have to do.
Since 2019, Microsoft has had an arrangement with OpenAI that has given the Redmond, Washington-based company exclusive rights to build new computing infrastructure for OpenAI. Microsoft said in a blog post that it “has approved OpenAI's ability to create additional capacity primarily for research and training of models.”
This opened the door for OpenAI to work with Oracle.
A person familiar with the deal said Stargate is a joint venture structured as a new entity in which OpenAI has an equity stake, governance rights and operational control. It will have a separate board appointed by its founding members and its own CEO, this person said. The venture will also have other investors including UAE firm MGX.
Microsoft, along with Nvidia and Arm, will be a “technology partner” in the new venture, but is not listed as an equity funder. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son will be chairman of the entity's board, according to a statement from OpenAI posted on social media site X.
But Microsoft said it still has exclusive rights to offer OpenAI's API — technology shorthand for application programming interface, which is the main way software developers and business customers purchase OpenAI's services. This means Oracle will not be able to host OpenAI's primary source of revenue. Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Microsoft's statements. Microsoft said it has “revenue sharing agreements with OpenAI that flow both ways”.
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