OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has agreed to lease 4.5 gigawatts of computing power from Oracle as part of a deal worth about $30 billion per year, which is one of the largest cloud services deals for artificial intelligence to date, writes UNN with reference to the Financial Times.
Details
The deal marks a significant expansion of OpenAI's Stargate data center project, which it launched with SoftBank in January to gain access to vast amounts of computing power to develop its powerful AI models and meet consumer demand for products like ChatGPT.
According to people close to the plans, Oracle will establish several data centers across the US to fulfill the new Stargate contract. Approximately 4.5 GW will be equivalent to about a quarter of the current capacity of operating US data centers.
OpenAI and SoftBank stated that Stargate will invest up to $500 billion in building data centers in the US and worldwide.
The joint venture has raised about $50 billion from its founding partners, which also include Oracle itself and the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund MGX. The company does not disclose how much of this capital has been deployed.
Earlier this week, Oracle's database group announced that it had signed a single cloud computing contract worth $30 billion in annual revenue, starting in 2028, without naming the customer. Sources close to the matter confirmed to the Financial Times that the customer was OpenAI as part of the Stargate expansion.
Potential locations for new data centers include Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Wyoming, New Mexico, Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, according to sources. Oracle will also expand the 1.2 GW Stargate facility in Abilene, Texas, which is being developed and financed by data center startup Crusoe.
Oracle shares soared to a record high after the announcement and continued to rise on Wednesday. The value of the deal is almost three times the company's annual revenue from its data center infrastructure business of $10.3 billion in 2025.
Oracle was slow to enter the cloud computing market but has seen a sharp increase in demand for data center infrastructure as companies seek computing power to run AI systems.
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According to the Financial Times, Oracle will acquire about 400,000 high-performance Nvidia GB200 chips for approximately $40 billion to power the data center in Abilene.
The deal also shows how OpenAI is turning to new cloud providers to meet demand for its AI products.
Addition
Earlier this year, the company revised its commercial terms with Microsoft, which was its exclusive cloud provider. Microsoft, which is OpenAI's largest investor, now has the right of first refusal on contracts. Following this change, OpenAI signed agreements with Google and neocloud provider CoreWeave.