Michigan data center construction began Monday as OpenAI, Oracle (ORCL) and Related Digital broke ground on a $7 billion Saline Township campus, with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance touring the site.

Key Takeaways

  • OpenAI, Oracle and Related Digital broke ground on a $7 billion campus in Saline Township, Michigan on Monday

  • President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance toured the site during the groundbreaking visit

  • The Stargate Project has pledged capital estimated near $500 billion across sites nationwide

  • Local officials have not set a completion date, and the campus power source remains an open question

The companies detailed the campus in a release distributed Monday alongside the site visit, framing the investment as part of a broader manufacturing push in the state and touting jobs as a central benefit.

Oracle will supply cloud computing capacity for the facility, while Related Digital, a real estate developer that specializes in large-scale commercial construction, is handling site development and building work. The campus ranks among the larger ones OpenAI has disclosed so far.

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How Stargate Grew Into A Multi State Buildout

The wider Stargate Project is an infrastructure alliance among OpenAI, Oracle and other financial backers that has pledged capital estimated near $500 billion across sites nationwide, based on public statements the companies have made this year.

That financing pattern echoes an earlier SoftBank-backed Stargate commitment that grew to $5.5 billion over the summer, adding fresh capital onto the same nationwide buildout.

A hyperscale data center, the type of facility being built in Saline Township, is engineered to run thousands of servers at once, forming the computing backbone that trains and operates large AI models. It will need heavy electricity and water access to run at that scale.

The Power Question Still Facing The Site

Local officials have not set a completion date for the project, and neither Trump nor Vance addressed how the campus will source its power during Monday’s visit.

Whether it draws on new generation capacity or leans on existing grid supply remains an open question as construction begins.

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