SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- OpenAI said on Tuesday that it will team up with SoftBank and Oracle to build multiple artificial intelligence (AI) data centers in the United States.

The joint venture, Stargate, will begin with a large data center project in Texas and eventually expand to other states. The companies expect to commit 100 billion U.S. dollars to Stargate initially and invest 500 billion dollars into the venture over the next four years.

"The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to [build] new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States," OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank said in a statement. "This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world."

"SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility," the statement noted. "Masayoshi Son will be the chairman ... As part of Stargate, Oracle, Nvidia, and OpenAI will closely collaborate to build and operate this computing system." ■