OpenAI will be the lead customer for a new data center in Norway with an initial capacity of 20 MW. As part of the deal, Norwegian company Nscale Global Holdings Ltd. will build the first European data center for the Stargate infrastructure initiative, Bloomberg reports.
The new data center will be financed by Norwegian investment company Aker ASA. The facility, which will be jointly owned by two European companies, is initially intended to provide 230 megawatts of capacity, with plans to add another 290 MW.
The Norwegian project, according to the companies, will be "one of the most significant" investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure in Europe. In general, European officials and business leaders are actively calling for greater investment in facilities to support artificial intelligence. Such actions are driven by concerns about slowing growth and technology transfer from the United States and China.
"Europe needs more compute to realize the full potential of AI for all Europeans — from developers and researchers to startups and scientists — and we want to help make that happen. I’ve always said we’d love to bring Stargate to Europe if the conditions are right, and we think we’ve found that," says OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
In total, the facility in Norway plans to supply 100,000 NVIDIA GPUs by the end of 2026. The number of chips is planned to be expanded over time. OpenAI is not currently giving a construction timeline, but Aker and Nscale have promised to allocate about $1 billion to finance the initial phase of the project.