According to CNBC, which was confirmed by a spokesperson from the company, OpenAI has suspended its Stargate artificial intelligence infrastructure project in the United Kingdom. The suspension is due to elevated energy costs and regulatory uncertainty.
Initially unveiled by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in mid-September 2025, this collaboration with Nvidia and Nscale aimed to deploy up to 8,000 GPUs starting in early 2026 at locations like Cobalt Park, designated as an “AI Growth Zone” in northeast England. The project anticipated scaling up to approximately 31,000 GPUs over time.
Altman emphasized that “Everything starts with compute,” asserting the foundational role of compute infrastructure in future economies and its potential for fostering AI advancements and scaling them across various sectors.
The decision was influenced by U.K.’s industrial electricity costs, which average around 24 pence per kilowatt-hour. AI data centers have significantly higher power requirements than typical industrial facilities, often operating continuously at 50–100 megawatts. With more than 140 projects awaiting grid connections totaling over 50 gigawatts, a 100-megawatt center could incur annual costs between $125 million and $250 million.
This project followed OpenAI’s July 2025 memorandum of understanding with the U.K. government to integrate frontier AI systems in public services, occurring several months after the Trump administration announced a similar initiative in January 2025.
Although Altman has not publicly commented on Stargate UK’s status, OpenAI communicated to CNBC that it remains open to advancing the project under more favorable regulatory and energy cost conditions. “We continue to explore Stargate U.K. and will move forward when the right conditions such as regulation and the cost of energy enable long-term infrastructure investment,” stated OpenAI.
OpenAI has not yet responded to a request for comment from Decrypt.