- OpenAI has not closed its planned data center deal in Narvik, Norway, and is not proceeding with its UK Stargate project, both of which were developed by neocloud provider Nscale.
- Microsoft is leasing 30,000 Nvidia Vera Rubin chips at the Narvik facility, added on top of an existing $6.2 billion agreement with Nscale.
- Google has taken over the London Nscale data center, according to Bloomberg reporting cited by The Decoder.
- OpenAI’s infrastructure spending target has been revised from $1.4 trillion down to $600 billion by 2030.
What Happened
OpenAI has pulled back from two planned European Stargate data center deployments — one in Narvik, Norway, near the Arctic Circle, and one in London — with Microsoft and Google stepping in to take over the capacity, according to The Decoder. Both sites were developed by neocloud provider Nscale. The Norwegian deal was never formally closed.
The retreat directly contradicts a position CEO Sam Altman staked out publicly in July 2025, when he stated that conditions were right to expand Stargate infrastructure into Norway. Less than a year later, neither that site nor the UK project is moving forward under OpenAI’s control.
Why It Matters
The withdrawal is the most concrete indication to date that OpenAI’s European infrastructure ambitions have contracted sharply. The company’s stated compute investment target has been revised from $1.4 trillion — the headline figure tied to the original Stargate announcement — to $600 billion by 2030, a reduction of more than 57 percent.
The two vacated sites are now being absorbed by Microsoft and Google, both of which operate their own foundation model businesses and cloud platforms in direct competition with OpenAI.
Technical Details
Microsoft’s expanded presence at the Narvik facility involves a lease for 30,000 Nvidia Vera Rubin chips, layered on top of an existing $6.2 billion deal Nscale had already struck. Vera Rubin is Nvidia’s next-generation GPU architecture, succeeding the Blackwell family, and a lease of this scale at a single facility represents a significant compute concentration in northern Europe.
The London Nscale data center is being transferred to Google, per Bloomberg reporting cited by The Decoder. OpenAI has not publicly confirmed the terms of either site handover.
Who’s Affected
Nscale retains its data center assets but transitions from OpenAI to Microsoft and Google as anchor tenants at both the Narvik and London sites. The reallocation places Vera Rubin-based compute capacity in Norway under Microsoft’s control rather than within OpenAI’s direct infrastructure build-out.
Enterprise customers and AI developers who anticipated dedicated OpenAI Stargate capacity in Europe — based on Altman’s July 2025 statements — now face an indefinite delay on that regional footprint. No replacement European Stargate sites have been announced.
What’s Next
OpenAI’s revised $600 billion forecast through 2030 implies a more concentrated infrastructure strategy, with capital directed more selectively than the original Stargate narrative suggested. The company has not disclosed whether alternative European deployments are under negotiation.
Microsoft’s 30,000-chip expansion in Narvik and Google’s entry into the London facility extend both hyperscalers’ European compute presence at a time when AI inference demand in the region is accelerating.
