
ARM boost in $100bn Stargate data centre project

ARM and its owner Softbank are a key partners in a datacentre infrastructure programme called Stargate.
The project, with Nvidia as the chip supplier alongside Microsoft, Oracle and OpenAI, will see an investment of $100bn for a series of data centres starting with a site in Texas. The deal could be as large as $500bn over the next four years.
“It’s a pretty big deal,” said Rene Haas, CEO of ARM. “It’s probably the largest infrastructure investment in history, You need a lot of land, a lot of compute and power and that’s where ARM comes in.”
The datacentres will use the Grace Blackwell superchip that combines the existing Grace processor with 72 or 144 ARM Neoverse V2 cores launched back in 2021 alongside the latest Blackwell GPU chip with 208bn transistors in two chips. Nvidia also offers a 120kW rack as an industry standard with the Grace Blackwell superchips.
“With Grace Blackwell the CPU is ARM. The vision of Softbank has been instrumental in making this happen,” said Haas “There’s a lot of work required to get all the permits done and regulations to be fast tracked to make all of this happen.”
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has previously suggested building fabs to supply the chips for such a rollout.
Haas points to MGX of the UAE as a financing partner for Stargate, while Masayoshi Son, CEO of Softbank, will be the chairman. The project will see significant demand for AI cooling technologies such as those from Iceotope as well as high efficiency power supplies with silicon carbide and gallium nitride switching.
“We want to connect with firms across the built data centre infrastructure landscape, from power and land to construction to equipment, and everything in between,” said the project.
