OpenAI unveils Stargate Norway — its first data center in Europe

The facility in Narvik, Northern Norway was selected for its cool climate and abundant clean energy, and will host 100,000 Nvidia chips with a total power consumption of 230 MW.

It will run mostly ChatGPT loads, but «surplus capacity» will be made available to local and North European developers, and government programs, which is in high demand.

ChatGPT use in Norway has quadrupled in the past year, OpenAI says in its statement on the project, and there are thousands of developers on the platform.

International and local partners
— I have always said we would love to bring Stargate to Europe under the right conditions, and we think we have found that in Narvik, with clean, reasonable energy, ideal climate, and good partners, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is qouted as saying in Norwegian media

The initiative will be designed and built by Nscalce, «a leading AI infrastructure provider,» and will be owned by them and Aker, a local industry conglomerate, in a 50/50 joint venture.

Serious compute power
100,000 Nvidia GPUs is what it took to train Xai’s Grok 3, currently feeding x.com. Grok 4 was trained on 240,000 such chips. It would amount to about a tenth of OpenAIs capacity at years end, so Stargate Norway woud add some significant compute power.

The data center can expand up to 290 MW and will have the Nvidia chips up and running by the end of 2026, with «the intention to expand significantly in the years ahead,» says OpenAI. The Norwegian partners say the goal is to hit 250,000 chips sometime in the future.

Expanding internationally
This is the first data center for OpenAI on the European continent, and falls nicely in line with their massive build-up ambitions.

It also follows the launch of Stargate UAE, OpenAI says. In addition this, they say they have signed agreements with the UK, and entered a partnership with Estonia to deploy ChatGPT in all secondary schools, both of which might lead to more buildouts later.

Read more: OpenAI; Introducing Stargate Norway