OpenAI's ambitious plans to deploy its 'Stargate' supercomputer infrastructure in Europe have hit a harsh reality. According to reports from Bloomberg and The Decoder, Sam Altman’s optimistic July 2025 vision for a site in Narvik, Norway, has failed to cross the finish line. OpenAI did not sign the contract with data center operator Nscale, leading to the freezing of the Arctic Circle project. A similar situation is unfolding in the United Kingdom, where OpenAI’s plans for a domestic Stargate implementation have also been scrapped. Notably, both facilities were being specifically engineered to meet Nscale’s requirements.
As OpenAI reevaluates its strategy, industry heavyweights are moving quickly to occupy the vacant sites. In Narvik, Microsoft has seized the initiative, leasing capacity designed for 30,000 Nvidia 'Vera Rubin' generation GPUs. This expansion comes as an addendum to an existing $6.2 billion agreement. Meanwhile, Bloomberg sources indicate that Nscale’s London data center is transitioning to Google’s control.
The scale of the industry shift is further reflected in financial projections: original ambitions for a $1.4 trillion infrastructure investment have been replaced by a more pragmatic forecast of $600 billion by 2030. The Narvik case serves as a warning sign for the market. If OpenAI—the industry leader—struggles to secure computational power and finds itself increasingly dependent on Microsoft and Google’s resources, the question of infrastructure autonomy becomes almost insurmountable for other players. The global AI arms race has definitively transformed into a fierce competition for physical access to chips and data center real estate.