Welcome to Backchannel and Happy July 4th. This is the weekend briefing for subscribers of The Closer, where we decode power plays in dealmaking, business, and influence. This week, we unpack how OpenAI’s 4.5 gigawatt lease from Oracle isn’t just about compute—it’s industrial policy in disguise. Think fewer earnings calls, more empire-building.
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OpenAI and Oracle
The $30 Billion Compute Pact That’s Rewiring the Future
Inside the AI world’s biggest infrastructure deal—how OpenAI is leasing 4.5 gigawatts of capacity from Oracle to power its next phase, and why this is more than just cloud scale. This is industrial power politics.
On a brisk January morning in Washington, D.C., a most unlikely quartet stood shoulder to shoulder in the White House’s Roosevelt Room: AI wunderkind Sam Altman of OpenAI, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, and newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. As cameras flashed, Trump hailed what he called “the largest AI infrastructure project in history” – a grand initiative dubbed Stargate, promising to pour half a trillion dollars into AI supercomputing centers across the United States. The image was striking: tech executives and a President celebrating a data center deal with the fanfare usually reserved for peace treaties. Six months later, the reason for that fanfare is clear. OpenAI has now inked a $30 billion-per-year pact to rent a staggering 4.5 gigawatts of cloud capacity from Oracle – the world’s largest cloud computing deal ever. This agreement doesn’t just set a record in scale; it signals a seismic shift in how AI’s future will be powered, blending cutting-edge tech ambition with old-school industrial might and political muscle.
