On October 10, 2025, a fortnight before Argentina’s midterm elections, the office of President Javier Milei celebrated on X (ex-Twitter) the launch of Stargate, “a pioneer project for Artificial Intelligence infrastructure which will place Argentina in the vanguard of the global ecosystem.” Backing the initiative were the company OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, and Argentina’s Sur Energy, which operates in the sector of infrastructure and energy. According to the same post, the plan presumed an investment of up to US$25 billion and it was to be structured within the framework of the RIGI (Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones) incentive scheme for major investments.
The sum is the same as that earmarked for an initiative recently presented by the state oil company YPF for the Vaca Muerta shale formation. Up until then, the ‘Stargate’ project was the biggest announced under the RIGI system, the communiqué highlighted. But since October 2025, nothing further has been communicated about it – almost seven months afterwards, Argentina’s Economy Ministry recognised to Perfil last week that there is nothing to back up that statement of intent.
“Stargate has not been presented. We do not even include it in the ‘announcements’ because there has really been no mention of timescale, sums or localities,” said Darío Clemente, a CONICET national science council researcher and a member of the RIGI Observatory of the FARN (Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales) environmental NGO, which tracks RIGI investments, crosschecking data between the media, company statements and requests for access to public information.
To date, explained Clemente, 17 projects have been approved with 23 in evaluation. None are those are Stargate. “There is no reliable updated information about Stargate beyond that electoral campaign announcement” although it “clearly could be revived if the Super RIGI advances,” warned the expert.
Approved RIGI projects are published in the Official Gazette. Economy Ministry officials underlined to Perfil that they will not be providing information until that happens.
Letter of intent
“Tremendous news. President Javier Milei is a magnet for attracting new investments,” celebrated Economy Minister Luis Caputo on his X social network account on the day of the Stargate announcement. Caputo also picked out Demian Reidel, the head of Nucleoeléctrica SA until last February who is now indicted and facing criminal charges, as well as an investigation into corporate credit card spending while he was in charge of the state firm.
In the initial announcement, Milei’s government informed that the project would be “capable of storing the next generation of Artificial Intelligence computing,” reaching up to 500MW of capacity. Sur Energy and OpenAI had signed a letter of intent for the construction of the data centre, it added.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also delivered a statement from San Francisco via a video, explaining: “We are proud to announce the plans to launch Stargate Argentina, an exciting new infrastructural project in association with one of the country’s main energy companies, Sur Energy.” Without giving further detail, he added that it was the first Stargate project in Latin America, “a region full of talent, creativity and ambition.”
Sur Energy wasted no time in publishing the video on its website and its social networks accounts.
Last week, Perfil contacted the press people from both the firm and its international partner, OpenAI, to learn the advances of the project. There was no response – OpenAI passed the message on to its Latin American representative, with the argument that contacts with the press were only for the time of the announcement. Neither the Argentine nor the regional representatives answered.
Perfil insisted with Sur Energy but with the same result – the consultation was redirected to, so they said, “the only person who could provide all the information.” That individual did not answer either.
On its Linkedin page, Sur Energy has barely three publications, all dating back more than six months and all referring to the Stargate project, with nothing before or after.
One of those posts is an Infobae interview with Sur Energy co-founder Emiliano Kargieman.
“What we’re doing now is identifying the place and looking for what we need to construct the data centre, which will not come from OpenAI but from investment funds,” he detailed, referring to funding.
Via its letter of intent, OpenAI has committed itself to buying the computing potential of that data centre, Kargieman explained.
“The idea is to begin building it in 2026, in order to have it on stream by early 2027, to then begin escalating its capacity to the maximum, which would be equivalent to an investment of some US$25 billion.” Getting that money would not be a great problem, Kargieman affirmed, since “today there is plenty of capital available for investment in digital infrastructure.”
At various points of the interview, he recognised that without Milei’s RIGI scheme, investment would not be possible.
In the interview Kargieman anticipates that the firm already has contracts with two other companies for supplying energy to the data centre: Central Puerto and Genneia. The latter announcement had indeed been signed in a memorandum of understanding with Sur Energy and OpenAI towards that end.
Perfil tried to trace the possible advances or location of the investment with that partner but again there was no answer.
Costs and benefits
According to Kargieman, construction would demand thousands of workers, although once up and running, that figure would drop to around 100 with maintenance staff the main requirement. “The direct employment to be created is not the reason for doing it,” he asserted.
At the time of the announcement, the company said it was evaluating installation in three provinces: Neuquén, Río Negro and Chubut.
“We have a series of places identified which have to meet a series of characteristics,” explained the co-founder of Sur Energy, among them access to high-voltage power lines and water. Regarding the latter, he assured that while data centres historically consumed vast quantities, Stargate would function with a closed circuit reducing the use of water considerably.
The RIGI Observatory says it is unclear about the environmental implications of the project. Studying the implications of Stargate in detail is not possible, they told Perfil, because “like all RIGI projects, it is totally opaque.”
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