OpenAI pauses Stargate UK as energy costs and copyright rules block the path
In short: OpenAI has paused its Stargate UK data centre project, citing the high cost of industrial electricity in Britain and an unfavourable regulatory environment around AI copyright. The project, announced in September 2025 alongside Nvidia and Nscale, had planned to deploy 8,000 GPUs at sites in north-east England, scalable to 31,000 over time. OpenAI says it will move forward “when the right conditions” allow, though it has given no timeline. The pause is a significant setback for the UK government’s AI Growth Zones initiative and arrives as OpenAI prepares for a public listing.
