OpenAI is searching the U.S. for sites to develop a network of big information centers to power its artificial intelligence technology, expanding beyond a flagship Texas area and looking throughout 16 states to speed up the Stargate project championed by President Donald Trump.

The maker of ChatGPT put out a demand for propositions for land, electrical energy, engineers and designers and began going to locations in Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this week.

Trump promoted Stargate, a newly formed joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, shortly after going back to the White House last month.

The partnership said it is investing $100 billion - and ultimately as much as $500 billion - to construct large-scale information centers and the energy generation required to further AI advancement. Trump called the project a "definite statement of confidence in America ´ s potential" under his new administration, though the first job in Abilene, Texas, has been under construction for months.

Elon Musk, a Trump advisor and intense rival of OpenAI who remains in a legal fight with the company and its CEO Sam Altman, has openly questioned the value of Stargate's financial investments.

After Trump's announcement, a number of states reached out to OpenAI about inviting additional data centers, Chris Lehane, OpenAI's vice president of international affairs, informed reporters Thursday.

The company's demand for propositions requires sites with "distance to needed facilities including power and water."

AI utilizes huge amounts of energy, much of which originates from burning fossil fuels, which triggers environment modification. Data centers also normally attract big amounts of water for cooling. Some tech giants have begun financing nuclear power to plug into their data centers.

OpenAI's proposition makes no mention of whether it means to prioritize sustainable energy sources such as wind or solar to power the data centers. But it states electricity providers should have a strategy to manage carbon emissions and water usage.

"There ´ s some websites we ´ re taking a look at where we wish to assist belong to the procedure that brings new power to that site, either from new gas release or other methods," said Keith Heyde, who directs OpenAI ´ s facilities technique.

The first Texas task remains in a region Abilene Mayor Weldon Hurt has explained to The Associated Press as rich in multiple energy sources, consisting of wind, solar and gas. Also explaining it that way is the business that started developing the AI data center campus there in June - the same 2 "huge, gorgeous buildings" that in a current drone video posted on social media.

Crusoe CEO Chase Lochmiller said that wind power is main to the job his company is building, ratemywifey.com though it will likewise have a gas-fired generator for backup power.

"We try to develop data centers in areas where we can access inexpensive, clean and plentiful energy resources," Lochmiller said. "West Texas actually fits that mold where it is among the most regularly windy and bright locations in the United States."

Lochmiller said he anticipates the Trump administration, in spite of the president's opposition to wind farms, to be pragmatic in supporting wind-powered data centers when it is "really the most inexpensive method to gain access to energy."

Data centers taken in about 4.4% of all U.S. electrical power in 2023 and that ´ s anticipated to increase to 6.7% to 12% of overall U.S. electricity by 2028, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The other states where OpenAI is actively looking include Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New York City, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia. Heyde said the business only plans to build "someplace between five to 10" campuses in overall, depending upon how large each one is.

OpenAI formerly counted on company partner Microsoft for its computing requires. But the two companies just recently changed their collaboration to enable OpenAI to pursue data center development on its own.

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten added to this report.

The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and innovation contract that allows OpenAI access to part of AP ´ s text archives.