OpenAI scales back Norway plan

OpenAI has dropped its plan to buy capacity directly at a new Norway data center and is now negotiating to rent that computing power from Microsoft instead. (cnbc.com) The site is a planned 230-megawatt facility near Narvik in northern Norway, announced in 2025 by OpenAI, Nscale and Norwegian investor Aker ASA under the “Stargate Norway” banner. OpenAI had been presented as the initial customer for about half the project’s capacity. (techzine.eu) Nscale said on April 14 that Microsoft had expanded its Narvik agreement to add 30,000 Nvidia Vera Rubin graphics processors, with delivery starting in 2027. Bloomberg and CNBC reported that this is the capacity OpenAI had been expected to take. (datacenterdynamics.com) (bloomberg.com) (cnbc.com) A data center is a warehouse full of servers that rent out computing power, and large language models need enormous clusters of those chips for training and serving. In this case, OpenAI is shifting from trying to lock in capacity itself to buying access through Microsoft, which already finances and operates huge cloud fleets. (cnbc.com) (datacenterdynamics.com) The Norway pullback came days after OpenAI confirmed it had paused a separate Stargate-linked project in the United Kingdom. That left two European sites once tied to OpenAI being reassigned to larger cloud buyers. (cnbc.com) (datacentrereview.com) CNBC reported that OpenAI has been tempering expectations for its infrastructure spending as it weighs an initial public offering this year. Network World said analysts viewed the Norway and United Kingdom moves as a more conservative approach to server-farm costs. (cnbc.com) (networkworld.com) Microsoft was already a major customer at the Narvik campus before this week’s expansion. Bloomberg reported that the new deal builds on a previous $6.2 billion commitment at the same site. (bloomberg.com) Narvik has been marketed as attractive for artificial intelligence infrastructure because northern Norway offers abundant renewable electricity and cool temperatures that reduce cooling costs. Those advantages remain, but the customer mix is changing faster than the projects themselves. (techzine.eu) (datacenterdynamics.com) For now, the Norway project is still moving ahead with Microsoft and Nscale, while OpenAI appears set to access the same kind of computing power one step removed, as a renter rather than the anchor buyer. (cnbc.com) (techzine.eu)