Overview
US President Donald Trump joined Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on January 22 to announce the establishment of Stargate, a new business aimed at developing AI infrastructure in the nation. Major IT companies will initially contribute $100 billion to the project, which has a target investment of up to $500 billion in the upcoming years. Trump claims that the project will create 100,000 new jobs in the United States.

Stargate Project
The initial funding partners in Stargate include MGX, Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank. Stargate’s primary partners are SoftBank and OpenAI, with Altman’s AI lab handling operations and Masayoshi Son’s company handling finance. The chairman will be Son. The primary first technological partners are Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI. As we finalize definite agreements, we are assessing potential locations across the US for additional campuses, and the buildout is presently underway, beginning in Texas, according to OpenAI.

Opportunity for India by way of Stargate Project
Industry analysts stated on Wednesday that India has a great chance to accelerate its AI objectives by strengthening its partnerships with the United States through the $500 billion Stargate Project, which is the brainchild of OpenAI, Softbank, Oracle, and others. This can be accomplished by utilizing India’s participation in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) and the Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) agreement between the two countries—co-developing innovative technologies and expanding its domestic capabilities.

According to Ashok Chandak, President of the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), proactive diplomacy, strategic investments, and cooperative approaches will be essential to ensuring that India not only gains from the global advancements in AI but also positions itself as a powerful player in the global AI landscape.

India has the possibility of benefiting from the Stargate Project, even if its main goal is to strengthen US supremacy in the AI ecosystem. Nvidia, Arm, Microsoft, Softbank, Oracle, and OpenAI are just a few of the big businesses that are actively using Indian expertise and already have a sizable presence in India. Chandak went on to say that this gives Indian professionals the chance to work on this enormous project and advance their knowledge of cutting-edge AI technologies.

During the 120-day review process, there is cautious hope that the US administration would take industry input into account and loosen its restrictions on AI exports, particularly with regard to India and other key allies.

Need for AI Policy
Dr. Ajai Chowdhry, the head of HCL and chairman of the National Quantum Mission, said that this endeavor demonstrates the US’s real intention to regulate large language models (LLMs) and keep strong control over AI. There is a need to develop our own AI policy and begin tightly managing our own data if we want to achieve strategic autonomy. Additionally, Chowdhry stressed that we need to create domestic data center hardware since it will become more and more difficult to manage our data in any other way. He went on to say that in order to develop a new AI policy, the government and industry must collaborate.

The first data centers are now being built in Texas as part of the Stargate Project; 20 centers totaling half a million square feet are planned. According to Ellison of Oracle, these centers might enable AI applications that range from sophisticated healthcare solutions to electronic health records.

IndiaAI Mission
An important step towards strengthening India’s AI ecosystem was taken in March 2024, when the Cabinet authorized an allocation of more than Rs 10,300 crore for the IndiaAI Mission. The IndiaAI Mission’s key initiatives, such as the IndiaAI Compute Capacity, IndiaAI Innovation Centre (IAIC), IndiaAI Datasets Platform, IndiaAI Application Development Initiative, IndiaAI FutureSkills, IndiaAI Startup Financing, and Safe & Trusted AI, are expected to be accelerated by this significant financial infusion, which is planned to take place over the course of the next five years. The IndiaAI Compute Capacity, a key component of this endeavor, aims to establish a state-of-the-art, scalable AI computing infrastructure by deploying more than 10,000 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) through smart public-private partnerships.

The main goal of this investment is to support India’s AI innovation ecosystem by ensuring a systematic execution of the IndiaAI Mission through a public-private partnership approach. The government claims that about 8.6 lakh applicants have signed up for the IndiaAI “Future Skills” program, which was created in partnership with business partners to offer training in line with the most recent standards.