Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) would operate a US factory owned by Softbank Group Corp, setting up what is in the running to be the first manufacturing site in the Japanese company’s US$500 billion Stargate venture with OpenAI and Oracle Corp.
Softbank is acquiring Hon Hai’s electric-vehicle plant in Ohio, but the Taiwanese company would continue to run the complex after turning it into an artificial intelligence (AI) server production plant, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said yesterday.
Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies would make AI data center-related equipment, Liu said.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
Hon Hai — also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) — assembles Apple Inc iPhones and Nvidia Corp servers.
The company on Aug. 4 said it had reached a deal to sell land, property, machinery and equipment at a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, to an existing business partner for US$375 million.
Softbank is scouting several potential data center sites to serve as a flagship for Stargate, weighing their access to water, power and telecom networks. Hon Hai’s participation represents a boon for Softbank founder Masayoshi Son’s ambition to be at the center of surging investment in AI hardware.
In January, when US President Donald Trump first unveiled Stargate, Son stood beside him and promised to deploy US$100 billion “immediately” into data centers, electricity generation and other infrastructure to support AI.
However, the Stargate rollout stalled after economic risks stemming from US tariffs and the rise of cheaper AI alternatives such as DeepSeek (深度求索) made it harder to create the pricing models to secure project financing, Bloomberg reported in May.
Softbank has denied that financing has been an issue for Stargate.
Liu said Hon Hai and Softbank started preparatory work for the project more than half a year ago.
“We understand that for this project, the first priorities are power, venue, and timing — it cannot be delayed for too long. Taking all these factors into account, we believe Ohio is a very suitable location, and SoftBank shares this view,” he said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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