6,000 Workers and $850 Billion Stargate Plan Expose the Scale of OpenAI’s Data Center Expansion

In West Texas, around 6,000 workers reportedly arrive each day at an OpenAI construction site that forms part of the multibillion-dollar Stargate data center program, with individual sites estimated at about $50 billion and the total near $850 billion. Major tech firms including OpenAI, Meta, Google, Microsoft and Oracle are collectively driving capital spending toward roughly $443 billion this year and are taking on $121 billion in new debt, while analysts warn that power availability, rising leverage and growing use of credit-default swaps signal mounting investor unease.