OpenAI is significantly expanding its $500 billion “Stargate” initiative, a massive AI infrastructure effort developed with partners including Oracle and SoftBank.

The project has faced delays due to extended negotiations and site selection, according to SoftBank CFO Yoshimitsu Goto.

Despite these challenges, OpenAI remains focused on ensuring Stargate can support the next phase of AI growth, according to Reuters.

The project, first announced at the United States White House earlier this year, now covers nearly all of OpenAI’s work on AI chips and data centers.

Originally envisioned as a standalone company investing in AI infrastructure, Stargate’s scope has grown to include data center projects that began months before the public announcement.

OpenAI says the expansion is necessary to meet soaring demand for its AI tools.

The company plans to pursue new financing approaches, some developed only in the past year, to secure chips and build the necessary data center capacity.

CEO Sam Altman has highlighted the importance of this infrastructure, stating he aims to eventually construct a gigawatt of new AI capacity each week.

‘We cannot fall behind in the need to put the infrastructure together to make this revolution happen,” Altman said on Tuesday at a briefing with reporters, tech executives and politicians, including U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, and newly named Oracle co-CEO Clay Magouyrk.

Despite widespread optimism about AI’s transformative potential, investors have raised concerns about a possible bubble from rapid expansion.

Altman acknowledged the risks but remained confident in the sector’s long-term prospects.

“There will be a lot of short-term ups and downs, day-to-day quarter, whatever,” he said. “You zoom out enough and the charts look like this,” he said.