Nvidia, tech stocks rally after Trump announces $500 billion Stargate AI project

Nvidia (NVDA:Stocks rose more than 4% on Wednesday to help lift the technology sector and some chip stocks higher after Trump announced a $500 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure project.

The project is forming a company called Stargate, which will initially be funded by SoftBank (SFTBY:), OpenAI, Oracle (ORCL:), and UAE-based MGX.

Nvidia named Stargate, along with Microsoft (MSFT:) and British chip designer Arm (ARM:), as “key seed technology partners” for the project, which aims to build the US data centers needed to power artificial intelligence. OpenAI says Stargate will “immediately begin deploying $100 billion” and the upcoming will invest up to $500 billion over four years.

Nvidia’s earnings on Wednesday pushed its market cap to $3.6 trillion, making it the world’s biggest company again behind Apple (AAPL:)

Meanwhile, Microsoft shares were up nearly 4% early Wednesday, while Arm was up more than 14%.Oracle shares were up 7% and SoftBank was up more than by 10%.

“Stargate will build the physical and virtual infrastructure for the next generation of artificial intelligence advancements, and that will include building massive data centers, very, very massive structures.” Trump said at the briefing Tuesday. “These buildings, these are big, beautiful buildings that will employ a lot of people.”

Trump said the effort is designed to maintain the US lead in artificial intelligence development ahead of China.

The announcement follows a series of incidents Executive orders from the Biden administration last week on artificial intelligence, aimed at limiting the flow of AI chips to China and speeding up the construction of data centers in the US.

“This comes at a critical time as we expect Trump to aggressively pursue more AI investments in the U.S.,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors late Tuesday , that the project is “all part of a wider high-stakes poker game with China.”

After the announcement. Elon Musk took aim at OpenAI On his social media platform X, responding to OpenAI’s post about Stargate, he wrote: “They don’t really have any money.”

OpenAI: estimated to have lost $5 billion In 2024 though generated just $3.7 billion in revenue.

Tech stocks rose across the board on news of a major AI investment by Dell (DELL:) and super microcomputer (SMCI:), which makes servers with Nvidia chips, rose by around 4%.

Laura Bratton is a Yahoo Finance reporter. Follow her at Bluesky @laurabratton.bsky.social. Email her at laura.bratton@yahooinc.com.

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