SoftBank acquires Foxconn’s Ohio EV plant to power $500B Stargate AI infrastructure push

SoftBank Group Corp is acquiring Foxconn Technology Group’s electric vehicle plant in Ohio, in a bid to launch the Japanese company’s Stargate data center project, Bloomberg reported Friday.

According to the report, the Lordstown, Ohio factory is expected to be repurposed as a major data center hub under the Stargate Project, a $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative backed by SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX.

“SoftBank Group Corp. is the buyer taking ownership of Foxconn Technology Group’s electric vehicle plant in Ohio, a move aimed at kick-starting the Japanese company’s $500 billion Stargate data center project with OpenAI and Oracle Corp,” Bloomberg reported Friday.

The deal comes as SoftBank races to lay the physical groundwork for Stargate, a project that has struggled behind the scenes with funding plans and execution.

The timing of the acquisition is no coincidence. SoftBank has reportedly been in talks with Foxconn for months, trying to get the Apple supplier on board with a broader plan to build a national network of data centers. That pitch eventually led to the sale of the Ohio facility, sources told Bloomberg. Neither company commented on the report.

Originally operated by General Motors, the plant was later sold to EV startup Lordstown Motors, which struggled to scale production and eventually sold the site to Foxconn. Now, instead of producing electric trucks, it may soon be housing racks of GPUs and servers built for AI workloads.

That vision is Stargate, a private-sector moonshot announced in January by U.S. President Donald Trump. Framed as a strategic push to dominate AI infrastructure, Stargate aims to invest $500 billion in U.S.-based data centers and related technology by 2029. Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s founder and CEO, is chairing the effort.

The consortium behind Stargate includes some of the biggest names in tech. OpenAI brings the AI firepower, Oracle offers its enterprise muscle, and SoftBank is driving the investment engine. If successful, the initiative is expected to generate more than 100,000 jobs across the country and significantly shift the balance of AI infrastructure away from China and other global competitors.

For SoftBank, turning a dormant EV plant into a live data hub is more than a real estate deal—it’s a message. The AI arms race isn’t just about model training or cloud APIs anymore. It’s also about physical land, local power grids, and the concrete costs of digital ambition.

Whether Stargate delivers on its $500 billion promise remains to be seen. But with the Ohio acquisition, SoftBank just moved from vision to execution.