OpenAI rethinks data centres

OpenAI has put a planned UK data-centre project on hold and is expanding in London instead. (cnbc.com) The company said on April 9 that it paused its main British “Stargate” project because UK energy costs are high and the regulatory environment is uncertain. The project had been announced in September with Nvidia and Nscale as part of a push to add AI computing capacity in Britain. (cnbc.com) Four days later, OpenAI said it had signed a lease for an 88,500-square-foot permanent office in London with room for more than 500 employees. CNBC reported the site would support the company’s plan to make London its largest research hub outside the United States. (cnbc.com) Data centres are the warehouses that run artificial intelligence systems, packed with chips that draw huge amounts of electricity around the clock. When power is expensive or grid access is slow, the economics of building those sites can change faster than the demand for the AI itself. (techfundingnews.com) The UK still offers OpenAI a deep hiring pool, especially around London, but the country has been a harder sell for heavy infrastructure. Tech Funding News, citing industry data, said UK industrial electricity prices are about four times US levels and nearly double France’s. (techfundingnews.com) That split is showing up across the AI buildout: companies can place researchers in one country and the power-hungry machines in another. OpenAI told CNBC the London move reflected a “long-term commitment to the UK” even as the data-centre plan was paused. (cnbc.com) Power supply is also becoming a climate issue, not just a cost issue. WIRED reported this week that 11 US natural-gas projects tied to data-centre campuses linked to OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and xAI could emit more than 129 million tons of greenhouse gases a year if built and run at permitted levels. (wired.com) Those projects use “behind-the-meter” generation, meaning the site makes its own electricity instead of waiting for a utility hookup. That can speed construction, but it can also lock AI expansion to fossil-fuel plants at the same time companies are trying to add computing capacity fast. (wired.com) Britain has been trying to position itself as an AI hub, and the Stargate pause cuts against that pitch. Reuters, as carried by AOL, reported the halted project had been expected to support a multibillion-pound investment in UK AI infrastructure. (aol.com) For now, OpenAI’s UK strategy looks narrower: hire in London, wait on the giant server campus, and keep looking for places where power, permits and politics line up. (cnbc.com)