Stargate alliance makes short list of states for data center buildout

Driving the news: Stargate's first site is underway in Abilene, Texas.

• Other states in the running include Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
• Stargate has begun soliciting proposals for land, power, engineers and architects, and company officials are traveling across the country visiting sites.
• In the spring, Stargate plans to announce additional sites on a rolling basis.
• Each campus will be in the roughly 1 gigawatt or greater range, and they will all be connected.

Asked how the companies would address any harms to the environment or local communities, Keith Heyde, a member of Stargate's infrastructure team, said water efficiency is "part of our core design ethos."

• "This is critical, not only in places where there's ongoing drought conditions, but also critical in others where we just want to be conscious of general impacts to the water and the communities in which these campuses are situated," Heyde said in a call with reporters.
• OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane said this should be a win for local communities "in terms of the jobs, economic development and revenue."

Of note: Trump has not rescinded a Biden-era executive order to accelerate AI infrastructure construction by making federal land available.

• Lehane said Stargate is probably moving too fast to take advantage of the executive order's incentives and so they are looking at sites that may not be on federal lands.
• But Lehane emphasized that the executive order was still "a good signal" because it helps accelerate projects.
• "I want to make clear that I think for the overall interest of the U.S., you know, anything that can help us expedite the building out of this infrastructure is really important and helpful," he said.