It takes plenty of computing energy to run an AI product – and because the tech trade races to faucet the ability of AI fashions, there’s a parallel race underway to construct the infrastructure that can energy them. On a current earnings name, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang estimated that between $3 and $4 trillion will probably be spent on AI infrastructure by the tip of the last decade – with a lot of that cash coming from AI corporations themselves. Alongside the best way, they’re putting immense pressure on energy grids, and pushing the trade’s constructing capability to its restrict.

Beneath, we’ve laid out the whole lot we all know concerning the largest AI infrastructure tasks, together with main spending from Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI. We’ll preserve it up to date because the growth continues, and the numbers climb even larger.

Microsoft’s $1 billion funding in OpenAI

That is arguably the deal that kicked off the entire up to date AI growth: in 2019, Microsoft made a $1 billion funding in a buzzy non-profit known as OpenAI, identified principally for its affiliation with Elon Musk. Crucially, the deal made Microsoft the unique cloud supplier for OpenAI – and because the calls for of model-training turned extra intense, extra of Microsoft’s funding began to come back within the type of Azure cloud credit score somewhat than money. It was an incredible deal for each side: Microsoft was capable of declare extra Azure gross sales, and OpenAI obtained extra money for its largest single expense. Within the years that adopted, Microsoft would construct its funding as much as practically $14 billion – a transfer that’s set to repay enormously when OpenAI converts right into a for-profit firm.

The partnership between the 2 corporations has unwound extra not too long ago. In January, OpenAI introduced it might not be utilizing Microsoft’s cloud solely, as an alternative giving the corporate a proper of first refusal on future infrastructure calls for however pursuing others if Azure couldn’t meet their wants. Extra not too long ago, Microsoft started exploring different basis fashions to energy its AI merchandise, establishing much more independence from the AI large.

OpenAI’s association with Microsoft was so profitable that it’s turn into a typical observe for AI companies to signal on with a selected cloud supplier. Anthropic has obtained $8 billion in funding from Amazon, whereas making kernel-level modifications on the corporate’s {hardware} to make it better-suited for AI coaching. Google Cloud has additionally signed on smaller AI corporations like Loveable and Windsurf as “major computing companions,” though these offers didn’t contain any funding. And even OpenAI has gone again to the nicely, receiving a $100 billion funding from Nvidia in September, giving it capability to purchase much more of the corporate’s GPUs.

The rise of Oracle

On June thirtieth 2025, Oracle revealed in an SEC submitting that it had signed a $30 billion cloud companies cope with an unnamed companion, greater than the corporate’s cloud revenues for the entire earlier fiscal yr. OpenAI was ultimately revealed because the companion, securing Oracle a spot alongside Google as one of many OpenAI’s string of post-Microsoft internet hosting companions. Unsurprisingly, the corporate’s inventory went taking pictures up.

Just a few months later, it occurred once more. On September tenth, Oracle revealed a five-year, $300 billion deal for compute energy, set to start in 2027. Oracle’s inventory climbed even larger, briefly making founder Larry Ellison the richest man on this planet. The sheer scale of the deal is gorgeous: OpenAI doesn’t have $300 billion to spend, so the determine presumes immense progress for each corporations, and greater than a little bit religion. However earlier than a single greenback is spent, the deal has already cemented Oracle as one of many main AI infrastructure suppliers – and a monetary power to be reckoned with.

Constructing tomorrow’s hyperscale information facilities

For corporations like Meta that have already got vital legacy infrastructure, the story is extra sophisticated – though equally costly. Mark Zuckerberg has mentioned that Meta plans to spend $600 billion on US infrastructure via the tip of 2028. In simply the primary half of 2025, the corporate spent $30 billion extra than the earlier yr, pushed largely by the corporate’s rising AI ambitions. A few of that spending goes towards massive ticket cloud contracts, like a current $10 billion cope with Google Cloud, however much more assets are being poured into two large new information facilities. A brand new 2,250-acre web site in Louisiana, dubbed Hyperion, will price an estimated $10 billion to construct out and present an estimated 5 gigawatts of compute energy. Notably, the positioning consists of an association with a neighborhood nuclear energy plant to deal with the elevated power load. A smaller web site in Ohio, known as Prometheus, is predicted to come back on-line in 2026, powered by pure fuel. 

That form of buildout comes with actual environmental prices. Elon Musk’s xAI constructed its personal hybrid information middle and power-generation plant in South Memphis, Tennessee. The plant has shortly turn into one of many county’s largest emitters of smog-producing chemical compounds, because of a string of pure fuel generators that consultants say violate the Clear Air Act.

The Stargate moonshot

Simply two days after his second inauguration, President Trump introduced a three way partnership between SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle, meant to spend $500 billion constructing AI infrastructure in the US. Named “Stargate” after the 1994 movie, the mission arrived with unimaginable quantities of hype, with Trump calling it “the most important AI infrastructure mission in historical past. Sam Altman appeared to agree, saying, ​​”I believe this will probably be a very powerful mission of this period.” 

In broad strokes, the plan was for SoftBank to offer the funding, with Oracle dealing with the buildout with enter from OpenAI. Overseeing all of it was Trump, who promised to clear away any regulatory hurdles which may decelerate the construct. However there have been doubts from the start, together with from Elon Musk, Altman’s enterprise rival, who claimed the mission didn’t have the out there funds.

Because the hype has died down, the mission has misplaced some momentum. In August, Bloomberg reported that the companions had been failing to succeed in consensus. Nonetheless, the mission has moved ahead with the development of eight information facilities in Abilene, Texas, with building on the ultimate constructing set to be completed by the tip of 2026.