OpenAI was not announcing an immediate move from Microsoft to SoftBank. A February 2025 report described internal forecasts in which Stargate could provide roughly 75% of OpenAI’s data-center capacity by 2030. The plan pointed to a gradual diversification of infrastructure—not the replacement of Microsoft Azure by SoftBank.
As of August 2026, Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud partner, while OpenAI has expanded Stargate and gained greater freedom to use other infrastructure providers.
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What the February 2025 report actually said
The Information reported that OpenAI’s investor-facing forecasts projected Stargate would supply about three-quarters of the company’s data-center capacity by 2030. The same forecasts reportedly included:
- Approximately 8 gigawatts of OpenAI data-center capacity by 2030;
- More than $320 billion in cumulative compute spending from 2025 through 2030; and
- Cash burn peaking near $20 billion in 2027.
These were forecasts and investor discussions, not a public announcement that OpenAI had completed—or would immediately complete—a provider switch. The 75% figure referred to data-center capacity, not necessarily 75% of all cloud spending, GPUs, training work, or user-facing workloads.
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“Compute needs” can include model-training infrastructure, inference capacity used to answer users’ requests, leased cloud resources, and data centers financed or controlled through infrastructure partnerships. Those categories are related but not interchangeable.
Why OpenAI wanted more infrastructure outside Microsoft
Frontier AI requires unusually large and growing quantities of chips, electricity, land, networking equipment, cooling capacity, and specialized data-center construction. Relying heavily on one infrastructure partner can make deployment schedules, hardware configurations, and available capacity harder to control.
Building a broader infrastructure portfolio could give OpenAI:
- More guaranteed power and data-center capacity;
- Greater control over hardware and deployment timelines;
- Additional negotiating leverage with cloud and chip suppliers;
- A way to separate training and inference workloads across specialized facilities; and
- Less dependence on a single provider for future growth.
The reported forecast also showed why this was not an overnight break with Microsoft. Spending on Microsoft-owned data centers was projected to rise from roughly $13 billion in 2025 to $28 billion in 2028, based on existing contracts. OpenAI could therefore increase its Stargate-related capacity while continuing to spend substantially with Microsoft.
What Stargate is—and what it is not
Stargate is best understood as a large infrastructure platform and project portfolio, not simply “SoftBank’s data-center network.” Its initial equity participants were OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX, an Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm. Initial technology partners included Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI.
OpenAI’s original announcement described an ambition to invest up to $500 billion over four years. That figure was an initial target; announced projects, financing arrangements, construction schedules, and site plans can change.
SoftBank’s role is primarily financial and infrastructural. Through entities including SB Energy, it can help arrange financing, develop energy resources, and participate in physical data-center projects. It is not simply providing a retail cloud service equivalent to Azure.
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SoftBank is not the new Azure
The simplified Microsoft-versus-SoftBank framing misses the structure of the arrangement.
| Company | Primary role in the infrastructure strategy |
|---|---|
| Microsoft | OpenAI’s primary cloud partner, strategic investor, and major provider of Azure and Microsoft-linked data-center capacity. |
| SoftBank | Investor and infrastructure sponsor involved in financing, energy, and physical data-center development. |
| Oracle | Major Stargate infrastructure and cloud partner supplying large-scale capacity. |
| MGX | Initial Stargate equity participant. |
| CoreWeave and other providers | Potential or announced sources of specialized GPU and data-center capacity within a broader multi-provider strategy. |
The practical change was a move toward a multi-partner infrastructure portfolio. SoftBank was central to financing and physical infrastructure, but the actual compute could be delivered through Oracle, CoreWeave, Microsoft, other cloud providers, or infrastructure entities connected to the project.
Microsoft remained OpenAI’s primary cloud partner in 2026
The strongest update came on April 27, 2026. OpenAI said Microsoft remained its primary cloud partner. OpenAI products would ship first on Azure unless Microsoft could not or chose not to support the capabilities required.
The amended relationship also allowed OpenAI to serve products across other cloud providers. Microsoft’s license to OpenAI intellectual property became non-exclusive, while Microsoft retained a continuing investment and the companies said they would continue working together on large-scale data-center capacity.
That means Microsoft’s relationship became less exclusive without becoming unimportant. Azure could remain OpenAI’s first deployment channel even as a growing share of physical capacity came from Stargate-related projects or other providers.
How large is the infrastructure target?
Several figures are relevant, but they should not be treated as identical:
- 8GW by 2030: The approximate OpenAI data-center target described in the February 2025 report.
- 10GW by 2029: A later official OpenAI goal to secure U.S. AI infrastructure.
- Up to $500 billion: The initial four-year Stargate investment ambition announced in January 2025.
A gigawatt measures power capacity. It does not specify the number or generation of GPUs, networking performance, utilization, training throughput, or how much capacity is operational. A powered site may still require hardware installation, testing, and software integration before it can run production workloads.
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OpenAI’s infrastructure update described the 10GW goal, but it should not be used to rewrite the earlier 8GW forecast as though the two numbers were the same measurement or commitment.
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OpenAI and its partners subsequently announced several concrete infrastructure initiatives:
- OpenAI and Oracle announced up to 4.5GW of additional Stargate capacity in the United States.
- OpenAI and SB Energy announced a 1.2GW data-center lease connected to Stargate.
- OpenAI announced five additional Stargate sites with Oracle and SoftBank.
These announcements demonstrate that the diversification strategy was real. They do not prove that all announced capacity was energized, equipped with GPUs, or running OpenAI workloads.
Why project status matters
Infrastructure reporting often uses “capacity” to describe projects at very different stages. Investors and cloud customers should distinguish among:
- Announced: A company has disclosed a plan or target.
- Financed or contracted: Funding, leasing, or procurement arrangements have been established.
- Under construction: Physical development is underway.
- Energized: The site has access to usable electrical power.
- Operational: Hardware is installed and available for workloads.
In March 2026, the Associated Press reported that Oracle and OpenAI dropped plans to expand the flagship Abilene, Texas, site beyond its existing scope amid financing negotiations and changing requirements. That report did not establish that Stargate as a whole had been canceled. It did illustrate the execution risks involved in building infrastructure at this scale.
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Power interconnections, permits, construction schedules, cooling systems, chip availability, financing, and rapidly changing AI hardware can all alter a project’s final size or timing.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to judge whether the “shift” is real
The most useful test is not whether a headline mentions SoftBank. Instead, ask five questions:
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- Who controls the capacity? Is OpenAI renting cloud resources, leasing a facility, or controlling hardware and site operations?
- What is the project status? Is the capacity announced, under construction, energized, or operational?
- Who supplies the service? Is the infrastructure operated by Microsoft, Oracle, CoreWeave, SB Energy, another developer, or a combination?
- Is the arrangement exclusive? Can OpenAI use the capacity alongside Azure?
- What is the time horizon? Is the claim a 2030 forecast, a procurement decision, or a completed migration?
These questions prevent a common error: treating a financing relationship, a physical data center, and a public cloud provider as the same thing.
What the strategy means for the AI infrastructure market
For Microsoft Azure, the development could reduce exclusivity and shift some physical capacity elsewhere, but Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud partner. Azure also retains the benefit of being the first deployment channel for OpenAI products under the 2026 agreement.
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For Oracle, CoreWeave, and other specialized providers, Stargate creates opportunities to supply large GPU clusters and infrastructure without replacing Azure across every workload.
For data-center developers and power suppliers, OpenAI’s targets show the scale of potential demand. But demand forecasts do not eliminate financing, permitting, interconnection, construction, or utilization risk.
For NVIDIA and other chip suppliers, a multi-site strategy could expand the number of facilities requiring advanced accelerators and networking equipment. It also increases the importance of delivery schedules, hardware efficiency, and the ability to upgrade facilities as models change.
For enterprises evaluating AI infrastructure, Stargate should not be interpreted as a public “SoftBank compute” product. Standard cloud purchasing still requires vendor-specific capacity checks, regional availability, security review, service-level analysis, and often long-term commitments. Pricing varies by GPU, region, reservation, and workload.
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The February 2025 report described a potentially major shift in where OpenAI would obtain future data-center capacity. But “OpenAI is moving from Microsoft to SoftBank” is too broad and too final.
The more accurate conclusion is that OpenAI is reducing dependence on Microsoft-exclusive infrastructure by expanding Stargate and other external capacity. SoftBank is a major financial and physical-infrastructure partner, not a one-for-one replacement for Azure. Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud partner, while Stargate makes the overall infrastructure strategy broader, more capital-intensive, and less exclusive.
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