{"id":383668,"date":"2026-04-09T18:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/383668\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T18:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:45:13","slug":"openai-pauses-uk-data-centre-project-over-regulation-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/383668\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI pauses UK data centre project over regulation, costs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Muvija M<\/p>\n

LONDON, April 9 (Reuters) – ChatGPT-maker OpenAI<\/a> is pausing its main data centre project in Britain over an unfavourable regulatory environment and high energy costs, \u200cdealing a blow to the UK government’s push to position the country as \u200ca global AI hub.<\/p>\n

Microsoft-backed OpenAI, which has emerged as a leading player following the widespread adoption of ChatGPT, said \u200bon Thursday it would proceed with the data centre once conditions were in place to support sustained, long-term investment.<\/p>\n

OpenAI launched the Stargate UK project in partnership with Nvidia<\/a> and Nscale last September, timed to coincide with U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Britain that generated 150 billion pounds ($201.14 \u200cbillion) of inward investment overall.<\/p>\n

Billed \u2060by the company as a “major step” forward in the technology partnership between the two countries, the project was aimed at strengthening Britain’s sovereign compute \u2060capabilities and supporting faster AI adoption in the UK.<\/p>\n

Sovereign compute refers to a country’s capacity to develop and control its own AI infrastructure.<\/p>\n

OpenAI has been ramping up global investment in large-scale data \u200bcentre infrastructure, \u200bworking with partners such as Microsoft<\/a>, Oracle and \u200bNvidia to meet surging demand for \u200cAI compute.<\/p>\n

When asked about the company’s decision to pause the UK phase of the project, a government spokesperson said it was continuing to work with OpenAI and other leading AI companies “to strengthen UK compute capacity”.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, trailing in opinion polls ahead of a national election due by 2029, has placed AI at the centre of his growth strategy to attract \u200cinternational investment and reinvigorate a stagnant economy.<\/p>\n

Last year, \u200bStarmer pledged to take a pro-innovation approach to regulation, \u200bwhich Microsoft has also criticised in the \u200bpast, along with plans to make public data available to researchers \u200cand create zones for data centres.<\/p>\n

“We see \u200bhuge potential for the \u200bUK’s AI future. London is home to our largest international research hub, and we support the Government’s ambition to be an AI leader,” OpenAI said.<\/p>\n

“We continue to explore \u200bStargate UK and will move \u200cforward when the right conditions such as regulation and the cost of energy \u200benable long-term infrastructure investment,” it added.<\/p>\n

($1 = 0.7458 pounds)<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Muvija M and Akash \u200bSriram; Editing by Catarina Demony and Jane Merriman)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Muvija M LONDON, April 9 (Reuters) – ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is pausing its main data centre project in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5355,114,4866,54,85,46,5357],"class_list":{"0":"post-383668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-data-centre","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-keir-starmer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}