Microsoft takes over OpenAI data center in Norway

Microsoft instead of OpenAI. The Windows giant has agreed to rent data center capacity in Narvik, Norway, north of the Arctic Circle. The data center was originally planned for OpenAI as part of its Stargate project. This was reported by the Bloomberg news agency on Tuesday.

According to the report, Microsoft will rent 30,000 additional Nvidia Vera Rubin chips from the British AI infrastructure provider Nscale on a campus in the town of Narvik. Originally, OpenAI had negotiated with Nscale about capacities for its AI workloads on the campus, but according to insiders, could not reach an agreement, according to Bloomberg. The ChatGPT developer had marketed the project as its first European giant data center under the label “Stargate Norway”. As part of its AI infrastructure project “Stargate Project”, OpenAI plans to invest at least 500 billion US dollars in new AI data centers with partners in the coming years.

Second setback for OpenAI's plans

The abandonment of the data center plans in Norway is the second damper for OpenAI within a short time. Last week, OpenAI put its comparable data center project Stargate UK in Great Britain on hold for now, as the framework conditions for its realization were not met. The company cited regulatory hurdles and high energy costs as reasons for the surprising step. This was also a location developed by Nscale.

Bloomberg now reports that Nscale has found another customer in Google for a separate data center equipped with Nvidia's Grace-Blackwell chips in West London. This was communicated by a person familiar with the deal who wished to remain anonymous as the agreement is not yet public.

OpenAI is acting more cautiously

Considering the increasing costs for its server farms, OpenAI seems to be proceeding more cautiously now, contrary to bold announcements in the past, Bloomberg suspects. A spokesperson for OpenAI told the news agency that the company is still examining an agreement on capacities in Norway and is working with various partners on expanding its infrastructure.

Microsoft, in turn, has concluded several contracts with data center operators such as Nscale to meet the increasing demand for its own data centers. Last month, Microsoft also announced the takeover of a data center project in the US state of Texas, which was originally developed for OpenAI and Oracle. In Germany, Microsoft broke ground last month for a data center in the Rhenish lignite mining area, which is to have a capacity of around 520 megawatts (MW) in its final expansion stage.

(akn)