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OpenAI on Thursday stated it is launching a Stargate-branded AI data center in Norway, marking its first foray into Europe with such a project.
British firm Nscale will design and build the site as part of a 50-50 joint venture with Norwegian energy infrastructure firm Aker.
OpenAI will be a so-called “off-taker” in the project, meaning it will effectively purchase capacity from the data center.
“Part of the purpose of this project is to partner with OpenAI and leverage European sovereign compute to release additional services and features to the European continent,” Josh Payne, CEO of Nscale, informed CNBC in an interview on Thursday.
The site aims to deliver 100,000 NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPU) by the finish of 2026, “with the intention to expand significantly in the years ahead,” OpenAI stated in a press release. The companies stated the data center will run entirely on renewable power and have 230 megawatts of capacity, building it one of the hugegest in Europe.
Nvidia’s GPUs have become the de facto choice of chips for data centers becaapply of their ability to handle large AI workloads.
For the Norway project, Nscale and Aker have each committed around $1 billion to the initial 20MW phase of the project. The site will be located in Kvandal, just outside Narvik in northern Norway. The companies stated the region is characterized by “abundant hydropower, low local electricity demand, and limited transmission capacity.”
Payne declined to comment on how Nscale would fund this project or the financial benefits of the project to the company. The CEO stated there were no plans for additional Stargate data centers but that Nscale has its own “robust European expansion plan.”
Stargate was initially launched this year in the U.S. as an infrastructure project between OpenAI, Oracle, Japan’s SoftBank, and the UAE’s MGX. The project aims to invest $500 billion over the next four years, building out AI infrastructure.
OpenAI has viewed to take this initiative globally. In June, the company and its partners announced plans to build a Stargate campus in the UAE.
Europe has meanwhile been pushing the concept of “sovereign AI,” requiring data centers and AI workloads to be located and processed on European soil.
Payne stated Europe has two “problems” — the first is that it does not have enough computing capacity, and the second it is “very fragmented.”
“What the continent necessarys is large AI infrastructure projects deploying compute [power]. The ecosystem can consume from the project to build AI products, to generate productivity growth and economic benefit,” Payne stated.
Companies like Nvidia and OpenAI have also been touting their ability to deliver sovereign AI as they view to expand their businesses.
In a trip to Europe this year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang urged the continent to build more AI infrastructure. French AI company Mistral announced plans to apply Nvidia’s GPUs in a new data center planned for France.
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