By Medha Singh
(Reuters) -Oracle’s shares jumped nearly 9% before the bell on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump said the company would make a large investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure, alongside OpenAI and SoftBank.
The joint venture, called Stargate, plans to invest $500 billion to help the United States stay ahead of China and other rivals in the global AI race, Trump said at the White House on Tuesday.
The venture plans to deploy $100 billion immediately, with the remaining investment over the next four years. Construction of the project’s first data centers has already started in Texas.
Nvidia, which will supply chips for the venture, rose 2.7%, while the JV’s other tech partners also gained, with Microsoft up 1.1% and Arm climbing 5.5%.
Futures tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose 0.8%.
“We believe this is the start of a wave of massive AI investments to take place in the U.S. as we expect more big tech players to make announcements over the coming weeks,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said.
AI consumes vast amounts of energy to drive its immense computing power, boosting the demand for specialized data centers and electricity needed to power them.
Nuclear power company Vistra’s stock rose 3.8%. Over the past 12 months, its shares have surged more than fourfold, in part due to increasing demand for clean, sustainable energy for data centers.
AI server makers’ shares also gained, with Dell Technologies up 4.3% and Super Micro Computer rising 2.7%. Among other stocks, AI data analytics firm Palantir Technologies increased 2.2%.
Oracle’s shares closed about 7% higher on Tuesday, boosted by reports of the joint venture.
(Reporting by Amanda Cooper and Medha Singh; Editing by Samuel Indyk, Tasim Zahid and Shounak Dasgupta)
