Openai Stargate Data Center Buildout Build Buad Keyde

How Keith Hyide was not depicted by celebrating holidays. Instead of accustoming to his wife at home in Oregon, Hyde spent late December visiting the potential data center sites throughout the United States

Two months ago, Hyde left Dead To join Openai as head of infrastructure. His job was to transform the CEO Sam Taman Dreams of an ambitious account, and search for vast areas of land suitable for the vast facilities that will eventually be filled with units to process strong graphics to build large language models.

Hyde, 36, told CNBC in an interview: “I actually spent on the holiday separating Christmas and the New Year mostly in searching for sites,” Hyde, 36, told CNBC in an interview. “So I loved my family that, trust me.”

His life in 2025 became more intense.

Since January, Openai has been quietly and reviewed the proposals of about 800 applicants who hope to host the next wave of its Stargate data centers, which are the AI ​​Supermpting Centers designed to train strong models.

There are now nearly 20 sites in advanced stages of care, with huge areas of land under review across the southwest, west and southeast. Heidi said that the tax incentives are “a relatively small part of the decision matrix.”

The most important factors are energy access, ability to expand, and participate in local communities.

“Can we build quickly, is the strength of the strength there quickly, and is this something in it logically from the perspective of society?” He said.

Heyde leads the site development within the COMPTE industrial team in Openai, a section that quickly has become one of the most important groups within the company. The infrastructure, which was once a support function, was now raised into an equal strategic column with the development of the product and the model.

With approximately traditional data centers, Openai is betting that possessing the next generation of physical infrastructure is essential to controlling the future of artificial intelligence.

the Energy needs It is difficult to understand. The Gigawatt Data Center requires the amount of energy needed for some of the entire cities. Late last month, Openai announced plans to build 17 Gigawatt in partnership with Oracleand NafidiaAnd Softbank.

Hyde said that new sites should include all types of energy options, including batteries -backed solar installations, old gas turbine renovations, and even small normative nuclear reactors. Each location looks different, but they together form an Openai spine that needs to be expanded.

Heidi said: “We have done this wonderful part of the bottleneck analysis to know the types of energy sources that actually allow us to cancel the secure of the trip that we want to be,” Heidi said.

A good part of the capital comes from Nafidia. Chips Agreed To invest up to $ 100 billion to supply Openai’s expansion, which will include the purchase of millions of NVIDIA graphics processing units.

Heyde, former head of artificial intelligence account in DeadHelp oversee the construction of the GPU GPO group in Meta.

In addition to Power, Openai evaluates the extent of construction of a site, the availability of employment and proximity to the supporting local governments, according to the Stargate request for the suggestion.

Heidel said that the team exceeded 100 visits to a site and had a short list of sites in reviewing the late stage. Some will be new structures, others will require current facilities transfers and renovations. Flexibility will be a key.

“The ideal parcels are taken largely,” he said. “But we knew that perfection was not the goal – the goal was for us, the number one, the slope of a convincing force.”

Fierce competition.

Dead adopts what might be The largest data center in Western football A $ 10 billion project in northeastern Louisiana, feeding billions of dollars in state incentives. CEO Mark Zuckerberg It raised the upper end to the company’s annual capital expenses to $ 72 billion In July.

Amazon Anthropor cooperates on the AI ​​campus on an area of ​​1,200 acres in Indiana. Throughout the country, the states offer tax exemptions, energy guarantee, and the approvals for dividing the expedited areas to attract the following large AI group.

Openai is a relative point of view, as it has been present only a decade and is known only to the main current since the launch of ChatGPT less than three years ago. But it arose codes of proverbs Microsoft Softbank, as well as NVIDIA, is on its way to a Evaluation of $ 500 billion.

Openai shows that he is not afraid to lead the path in artificial intelligence. Solar prohibited self -designed in Abelene, Texas, already lives.

While Openai still tends to partners like OracleSarah Ferrar, financial manager Openai, told CNBC last week in Abilene that having the infrastructure of the first party provides a distinct approach. It limits the signs of sellers, protects the main intellectual property, follows the same strategic logic that once pushed Amazon to build Amazon web services instead of relying on the current infrastructure.

However, Heyde indicated that there is no real theatrical book when it comes to AI, especially since companies are following artificial public intelligence (AGI), or Amnesty International that can meet or exceed human capabilities.

“It is a completely different arrangement when we think about the type of delivery that should happen in those sites,” he said.

Some applicants, including the previous Bitcoin For mining operators, they offered the current energy infrastructure, such as sub -stations and standard construction, but Heyde said that these people do not always fit.

“Sometimes we found it good to be the first interaction in a society,” he said. “It is a very nice story that we bring the data center and infrastructure there on behalf of Openai.”

The twenty final sites represent the first phase of a much larger construction. Openai ultimately plans to expand Gigawatt projects to the huge campus.

Heidi said: “Any place or any site we advance with. We have truly considered the ability to faith and our belief that we can present the story of power and the infrastructure story associated with these sites.”

He understands the reason for many people’s doubt.

“It is difficult. There is no doubt about that,” he said. “The numbers we are talking about are very difficult, but they are definitely possible.”

He watches: Buildout Openai of $ 850 billion with network borders