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SoftBank Group (OTCPK:SFTBY) (OTCPK:SFTBF) is the buyer taking ownership of Foxconn Technology’s (OTCPK:FXCOF) electric vehicle plant in Ohio, a move intended to jump-start the company’s $500B Stargate data center project with OpenAI and Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), Bloomberg News reported.
SoftBank had approached the Apple (AAPL) supplier — which is formally known as Hon Hai Precision (OTCPK:HNHAF) (OTCPK:HNHPF) — with its plan to establish data centers and related infrastructure across the U.S., the report added, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The EV plant sale is a result of these efforts by the Japanese company.
Foxconn and SoftBank did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.
Earlier this week, Hon Hai Precision Industry, the flagship unit of Foxconn, said it agreed to sell the EV plant to Crescent Dune LLC for $375M without disclosing the company behind the entity. SoftBank is Foxconn’s counterparty in the transaction, the report noted.
Foxconn would operate the plant and use the site for its own AI server manufacturing business, the report added. The Ohio facility may be used to host a data center.
The two companies, which collaborated to make SoftBank’s humanoid Pepper robots a decade ago, formed a joint venture this year to establish a data center and manufacturing venture in the U.S., with each investing $735M. It is not clear if SoftBank’s investment in the venture includes the $375M for the EV plant, the report added.
On Thursday, SoftBank’s CFO Yoshimitsu Goto said it was taking longer than expected to get the Stargate project off the ground, acknowledging for the first time that the $500B AI collaboration in the U.S. with OpenAI is slowing down.
SoftBank’s Founder Masayoshi Son and OpenAI Co-Founder Sam Altman introduced the Stargate project in January along with President Donald Trump, with promises to start deploying $100B “immediately” and raise that to about $500B.
Meanwhile, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)-backed OpenAI has proceeded with other data centers that use the Stargate brand. A project in Abilene, Texas, touted as Stargate’s first site, was on-track before Trump’s announcement or SoftBank’s involvement. The Japanese company was not involved in plans for a large Stargate data center in Norway, where OpenAI would be the anchor customer. OpenAI’s Stargate project also includes a 5-gigawatt data center complex in Abu Dhabi.