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[return to "Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers"]
1. heyden+82[view] [source] 2025-01-21 22:40:58
>>tedsan+(OP)
~$125B per year would be 2-3% of all domestic investment. It's similar in scale to the GDP of a small middle income country.

If the electric grid — particularly the interconnection queue — is already the bottleneck to data center deployment, is something on this scale even close to possible? If it's a rationalized policy framework (big if!), I would guess there's some major permitting reform announcement coming soon.

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2. consta+V3[view] [source] 2025-01-21 22:48:29
>>heyden+82
They say this will include hundreds of thousands of jobs. I have little doubt that dedicated power generation and storage is included in their plans.

Also I have no doubt that the timing is deliberate and that this is not happening without government endorsement. If I had to guess the US military also is involved in this and sees this initiative as important for national security.

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3. cmdli+8m[view] [source] 2025-01-22 00:45:39
>>consta+V3
Is there really any government involvement here? I only see Softbank, Oracle, and OpenAI pledging to invest $500B (over some timescale), but no real support on the government end outside of moral support. This isn't some infrastructure investment package like the IRA, it's just a unilateral promise by a few companies to invest in data centers (which I'm sure they are doing anyway).
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4. seanmc+RT[view] [source] 2025-01-22 05:31:09
>>cmdli+8m
I thought all the big corps had projects for the military already, if not DARPA directly, which is the org responsible for lots of university research (the counterpart to the NSF, which is the nice one that isn't funded by the military)?
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5. timsch+701[view] [source] 2025-01-22 06:35:18
>>seanmc+RT
Funding for DARPA and NSF ultimately comes from the same place. DARPA funds military research. NSF funds dual use[1] research. All of it is organized around long term research goals. I maintained some of the software involved in research funding decision making.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-use_technology

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