Norway data‑centre deal shifts to Microsoft

Microsoft is taking over talks to rent artificial intelligence computing capacity at Nscale’s Narvik campus after OpenAI pulled back from the Norway project. (cnbc.com) CNBC reported on April 15 that OpenAI abandoned plans to rent capacity directly from the Norwegian site and is now discussing renting that capacity from Microsoft instead, according to an OpenAI spokesperson. The campus in Narvik is planned at 230 megawatts. (cnbc.com) Nscale said on April 14 that it expanded its Microsoft agreement in Norway and will add more than 30,000 Nvidia Rubin graphics processing units at the Narvik campus in 2027. Nscale said the site would become one of Norway’s largest onshore infrastructure projects. (nscale.com) The Narvik project was launched on July 31, 2025 by OpenAI, Nscale and Aker as “Stargate Norway,” with a plan for 100,000 Nvidia graphics processing units powered by renewable energy in northern Norway. OpenAI described it at the time as its first artificial intelligence data-center initiative in Europe under its OpenAI for Countries program. (openai.com, nscale.com) A data center like Narvik is essentially a giant warehouse of chips and power lines that trains and runs artificial intelligence models. In this case, the scarce asset is the graphics processing unit pool, because those chips handle the heavy math behind systems like ChatGPT. (openai.com, nscale.com) The shift also fits a broader change in how OpenAI is buying compute. CNBC reported that OpenAI has been tempering expectations for direct infrastructure spending, while Microsoft has kept expanding direct hardware and cloud agreements. (cnbc.com, datacenterdynamics.com) Microsoft already had a major Narvik commitment before this week’s expansion. Bloomberg reported that the new Norway deal builds on a prior $6.2 billion commitment by Microsoft at the same site. (bloomberg.com) The site is in Kvandal outside Narvik, above the Arctic Circle, and Data Center Dynamics reported that the added Microsoft capacity is due to be delivered in 2027. The publication also said the project is being developed through the Aker Nscale joint venture. (datacenterdynamics.com) OpenAI has also paused another Stargate project in the United Kingdom, CNBC reported, underscoring that the Norway change is not an isolated adjustment. For now, the Narvik campus is still moving ahead, but the customer taking the extra capacity has changed. (cnbc.com)