CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos reports from Abilene, Texas, where OpenAI CEO Sam Altman defended the company’s sweeping Stargate expansion. Altman argued the unprecedented buildout is the only way to keep up with surging AI demand, even as critics raise concerns about bubbles, strained power grids, and whether the growth is sustainable.

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OpenAI, alongside partners SoftBank and Oracle, is expanding its Stargate program with five new sites across Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, and the Midwest. This expansion aims to reach nearly seven gigawatts of capacity and involves more than $400 billion in investment over the next three years. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle leadership emphasize that such large-scale infrastructure is essential to keep pace with the rapid growth in AI demand. 

The Abilene, Texas campus already has one operational data center, with another nearing completion, and could eventually scale to serve hundreds of thousands of homes. OpenAI CFO Sarah Fryer noted that the primary challenge is securing enough power, not funding, and that the company is exploring various energy sources, including nuclear. OpenAI also plans to build its own infrastructure to maintain pricing control and protect intellectual property.

OpenAI's Sam Altman defends Stargate expansion as demand for AI soars

I'm here in Abilene, Texas, the flagship site of OpenAI's Stargate program, a buildout that's quickly spreading across the country. Now, OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle announced five more Stargate sites stretching across Texas, New Mexico, Ohio and then an undisclosed location in the Midwest. That brings the initiative to nearly seven gigawatts of capacity and more than $400 billion of investment over the next three years. These blockbuster deals have already fueled huge gains for AI-linked stocks. But one of Oracle's new CEOs told me that he is not worried about a bubble. Those comments echo what I heard from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who told me that this scale of construction is the only way to keep pace with AI's explosive growth. This is what it takes to deliver AI. AI, unlike previous technological revolutions or previous versions of the Internet, there's so much infrastructure that's required. And this is a small sample of it. Altman also told me that OpenAI's trajectory so far only underscores the need for even more compute. And here in West Texas, that demand is already taking shape. With what we see on the horizon for how much people are going to want to use this and what the quality of intelligence, the level of intelligence we can deliver with more compute, we're very confident at this point we're going to need much, much more compute to deliver on that. OpenAI CFO Sarah Fryer told me that this Abilene campus already has one data center online and another nearly complete. And this site could ultimately scale beyond a gigawatt of power, even to serve about three quarters of a million homes. And this all comes just one day after OpenAI signed a $100 billion partnership with NVIDIA. Now, Fryer told me that the real bottleneck here isn't money, it is power. OpenAI has scouted more than 800 sites across North America and she said that even nuclear is on the table alongside wind and solar. She also stressed that OpenAI will build its own first party infrastructure to keep pricing leverage and protect its IP, comparing it to Amazon's decision to build AWS rather than run on IBM servers. So while critics question whether the money flows are sustainable, OpenAI insists that this build out is the only way to meet surging demand for AI. For CNBC, I'm Mackenzie Segalos in Abilene, Texas.

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OpenAI's Sam Altman defends Stargate expansion as demand for AI soars

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