OpenAI is moving its AI infrastructure push into Europe with Stargate Norway, a planned data center near Narvik in northern Norway. The project brings together OpenAI, British AI cloud infrastructure provider Nscale, and Norwegian energy infrastructure firm Aker.
The announcement places Norway inside a wider debate about AI sovereignty, compute capacity, renewable power, and the growing infrastructure demands behind artificial intelligence. It also gives OpenAI a European site separate from the European Union’s own AI infrastructure plans.
What OpenAI is building in Norway
OpenAI said Thursday that Stargate Norway will be its first AI data center in Europe. Nscale will design and build the site, and the project will be structured as a 50/50 joint venture between Nscale and Aker.
OpenAI’s role is different from that of the builders. The company will be an “off-taker,” meaning it will buy capacity from the data center rather than own the whole project directly.
The first phase has been described as a 20 megawatt (MW) phase, with CNBC reporting that Nscale and Aker have each committed around $1 billion to that initial phase. OpenAI says Stargate Norway will initially deliver 230 MW capacity, with plans to expand to 290 MW.
By the end of 2026, the site is expected to run on 100,000 Nvidia GPUs. That figure matters because GPUs are the core hardware used to train and run many advanced AI systems, and access to large GPU clusters has become a strategic issue for companies and countries alike.
Why Narvik fits the project
The data center will be located near Narvik, a small town in northern Norway. OpenAI pointed to three reasons for the region: access to hydropower, a cool climate, and a “mature industrial base.”
Those factors connect directly to the physical demands of AI infrastructure. Large AI data centers need substantial energy, cooling, and industrial support. A cool climate can reduce cooling pressure, while hydropower supports the project’s claim that the facility will run entirely on renewable power.
OpenAI also said the data center is expected to use closed-loop, direct-to-chip liquid cooling. In plain terms, that means the cooling system is designed to bring cooling closer to the chips themselves while keeping the liquid in a controlled loop.
The company says excess heat from the GPU systems will be made available to support low-carbon enterprises in the region. That detail is important because waste heat is one of the practical issues regulators and communities increasingly watch as data centers grow larger.
The sovereignty question
Stargate Norway arrives as Europe is trying to build more of its own AI infrastructure. The bloc recently unveiled details of a multibillion-dollar investment into AI infrastructure, including €10 billion ($11.8 billion) to set up 13 AI factories and €20 billion as an initial investment in the factories.
That European effort is linked to data sovereignty. Business and government data can be sensitive, so where compute happens, who controls it, and what legal environment surrounds it all matter.
Still, Nscale and OpenAI told TechCrunch that Stargate Norway is not part of the European Union’s plans to scale AI at home. Nscale CEO Josh Payne told CNBC that part of the purpose of the project is to “leverage European sovereign compute” for the benefit of the continent.
Norway’s AI ecosystem will also receive priority access to the center. OpenAI and Nscale specifically pointed to startups and scientific researchers as groups that will get priority.
Regulation and environmental expectations
The project also lands in a policy environment where AI and data centers face more scrutiny. The EU AI Act, which took effect in August 2024, bans systems with “unacceptable risk.” It also requires companies building data centers to take steps to protect the environment and be transparent about the energy consumption of AI models.
The bloc’s Energy Efficiency Directive also emphasizes energy efficiency in the ICT sector, including data centers. It directs data centers above certain energy input thresholds to recover waste heat.
Stargate Norway’s renewable power plan, liquid cooling approach, and excess heat reuse fit directly into that policy context. The source does not say the project is part of EU infrastructure funding, but it does show how AI data center projects are being shaped by questions about energy, transparency, and environmental performance.
How this fits OpenAI’s broader infrastructure push
The Norway announcement is one part of a larger OpenAI infrastructure strategy. Seven months earlier, OpenAI announced it would invest $500 billion into 10 gigawatts of AI infrastructure in the United States over the next four years, in partnership with Oracle and SoftBank.
The Stargate Norway plan also follows the launch of Stargate UAE earlier this year. OpenAI has also recently signed a deal with the U.K. government to accelerate AI adoption and boost infrastructure.
Taken together, these projects show OpenAI expanding the physical base behind its AI systems across multiple regions. For Europe, Stargate Norway is notable not just because it is OpenAI’s first European AI data center, but because it ties compute capacity to renewable power, regional access, and the broader push for sovereign AI infrastructure.