In 2017, then-President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced together with Foxconn a new plant for the production of electronic components in Wisconsin, with an investment of 10 billion dollars and the promise of creating 13,000 jobs. However, Foxconn withdrew, and the grand project for the state of Wisconsin transformed into a Microsoft training hub with 1,500 jobs, with an investment that reached "only" 672 million dollars.
Today, Donald Trump has returned to the highest office in the United States, with the support of the CEOs of major American tech companies who see in the new course of the USA an opportunity to experiment and invest without the fear of having to answer for their actions, neither economically nor ethically, and he wants to try again.
The new colossal project presented together with Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI), Larry Ellison (President of Oracle), and Masayoshi Son (President of Softbank) is called Stargate. This project aims to create the entire infrastructure of Artificial Intelligence in the United States. The three protagonists have promised to invest 100 billion dollars in the project, with the goal of reaching 500 billion in the coming years, creating 100,000 jobs. According to the information provided, the first infrastructure, a huge warehouse of about 300,000 square meters, is already under construction in Texas.
The goal, not even too veiled, is to reduce the gap with China and position itself as the Western leader in the AI field, in direct competition with the great dragon. It remains to be seen how the European Union, regardless of the success of the project, intends to position itself and whether it plans to develop projects to also reduce the gap with the other two players, considering that the USA, with the new Trumpian course, looks at the EU with disinterest.
This should not mean taking steps back from the ethical use of AI achieved with the AI Act, but rather creating a common synergy to allow the development and sharing of structural projects in order to compete globally or, at least, not succumb between the two great powers.
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