Catenaa, Wednesday, May 21, 2025- OpenAI has secured $11.6 billion in funding for expanding a site that is core to increasing the ChatGPT maker’s long-term computing capabilities, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The funding secured by startup Crusoe is a mixture of debt and equity, which will expand the data center to eight buildings from two and increase the total amount secured for the project to $15 billion, the startup told WSJ.
Both Crusoe and investment firm Blue Owl Capital are contributing cash to the data center project as part of the latest financing.
The report said the data center, which is slated for completion next year, is expected to be the largest used by OpenAI. Each of the buildings will run up to 50,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips, which are commonly used for training large language models.
WSJ said the development of the Abilene site is a key step in reducing OpenAI’s reliance on Microsoft in the race to build the next generation of AI models.
For years, the startup exclusively relied on Microsoft for its computing power, but grew frustrated that the tech giant wasn’t keeping up with demand. Last spring, it struck a deal with Oracle to use the Abilene site after receiving the sign-off from Microsoft.
The report said that in the long term, OpenAI aims to build and operate its own network of data centers.
In January, Chief Executive Sam Altman unveiled a $500 billion infrastructure project called Stargate alongside the Japanese tech investor SoftBank and cloud firm Oracle.
OpenAI said at the time that it was evaluating sites across the country for Stargate, though details have so far been scarce.
