[cmdli]

Is there really any government involvement here? I only see Softbank, Oracle, and OpenAI pledging to invest $500B (over some timescale), but no real support on the government end outside of moral support. This isn't some infrastructure investment package like the IRA, it's just a unilateral promise by a few companies to invest in data centers (which I'm sure they are doing anyway).

[diggan]

> but no real support on the government end outside of moral support

The venture was announced at the White House, by the President, who has committed to help it by using executive orders to speed things up.

It might not have been voted by congress or whatever, but just those things makes it pretty clear the government provides more than just "moral support".

[malcolmgreaves]

It's just trump positioning himself for the eventual corrupt kickback.

[seanmcdirmid]

I thought all the big corps had projects for the military already, if not DARPA directly, which is the org responsible for lots of university research (the counterpart to the NSF, which is the nice one that isn't funded by the military)?

[timschmidt]

Funding for DARPA and NSF ultimately comes from the same place. DARPA funds military research. NSF funds dual use[1] research. All of it is organized around long term research goals. I maintained some of the software involved in research funding decision making.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-use_technology

[tsujamin]

It’s light on details, but from The Guardian’s reporting:

> The president indicated he would use emergency declarations to expedite the project’s development, particularly regarding energy infrastructure.

> “We have to get this stuff built,” Trump said. “They have to produce a lot of electricity and we’ll make it possible for them to get that production done very easily at their own plants.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/21/trump-ai-joi...