OpenAI has paused its Stargate UK data centre project, citing industrial electricity prices four times higher than in the US and unresolved AI copyright rules.

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OpenAI has paused its Stargate UK data centre project, originally announced in September 2025 as a partnership with Nvidia and Nscale to deploy up to 31,000 GPUs in north-east England. Two primary obstacles drove the decision: UK industrial electricity prices are more than four times higher than in the US, and grid connection queues stretch three to eight years. Additionally, the UK's unresolved AI copyright framework — where a broad text and data mining exception was rejected by creative industries — creates legal jurisdiction risk for OpenAI's training operations. The pause also aligns with OpenAI's pre-IPO capital discipline ahead of an expected public offering in Q4 2026. The US Stargate programme continues unaffected, backed by SoftBank's $40 billion bridge loan.

OpenAI pauses Stargate UK as energy costs and copyright rules block the path

A pause, not a cancellation, and the IPO context