"AGI to Emerge During Trump Administration"... Background of the '$500 Billion' Mega Project

President Donald Trump announced on the 21st (local time) at the White House that the United States would invest $500 billion, approximately 720 trillion won, over four years in AI data centers. SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison were present at the announcement. The plan is to establish a joint venture for AI infrastructure by attracting investment from overseas.

This project, which had been progressing among private companies since last year, seems to have expanded into a national project with the Trump administration. Microsoft, an investor in OpenAI, decided last March to build a data center with hundreds of millions of server chips for a massive AI model, investing $100 billion. Oracle has also been involved in this project since last year.

Meanwhile, the state-owned investment company MGX from the United Arab Emirates has joined, and SoftBank is handling global fundraising, expanding the scale fivefold. The project will also involve NVIDIA, which dominates the AI semiconductor market, and ARM, a semiconductor design company acquired by SoftBank. Chairman Son has taken charge of the project's fundraising. They plan to start by building data center infrastructure in Abilene, Texas.

The project's goal is to prevent China from growing in the rapidly expanding AI field, especially in the AI semiconductor sector, and to firmly establish U.S. leadership. It is noteworthy that Japan is participating as a major partner, as Japan has long been striving at the government level to regain its former status in the semiconductor field.

Technically, it is interpreted as being related to the imminent emergence of AGI, general artificial intelligence at the human level, rather than just AI. Previously, Altman stated that AGI would emerge before the end of the Trump administration. For this, a massive investment is required, which is difficult for individual companies.

At a press conference at the White House yesterday, founder Altman said this project would be "the most important project of this era." He also claimed that Stargate would enable AGI development in the U.S., creating "hundreds of thousands of jobs." He added that the project would be "good for Americans and the world." He praised President Trump, saying, "It would have been impossible without President Trump."

However, there was some caution against overly high expectations for AGI. In a post on X, he stated that OpenAI "will not deploy or build AGI soon" and advised to "lower expectations by 1/100." However, he predicted that "the first AI agent could 'join the workforce' this year."

In this regard, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva predicted that AI would affect 60% of jobs in advanced countries. Half of the affected jobs will see increased productivity through AI integration, but the other half will be negatively impacted by reduced wages or job losses.

The issue is funding. The idea of proceeding with the project at the government level while attracting investment from outside is somewhat unfamiliar. Elon Musk, who is not on good terms with Altman, poured cold water on the project. Musk wrote on X, "They don't actually have that much money." He added, "SoftBank has less than $10 billion," and "they don't think about money."

Altman countered in a comment, "As you know, that's not true. Would you like to visit the site already in progress?" He also advised prioritizing the nation, saying, "(This project) is good for the country." Although the exchange between the two sides is interesting, Musk's influence is unlikely to be significant, as this issue concerns who will hold global economic security leadership in the future, regardless of Musk's closeness to Trump.

Washington Correspondent Lee Sang-eun selee@hankyung.com