Stargate

Stargate is the joint venture announced in January 2025 by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle to build a $500 billion network of AI data centres across the United States, the Gulf, and now potentially the UK. The domestic phase committed $100 billion in the first four years, with the full horizon contingent on commercial returns. The capex programme is partly underwritten by workforce reduction: Oracle cut 20,000 to 30,000 employees in March 2026, freeing $8–10 billion annually and redirecting the savings into a $156 billion data centre build-out that overlaps directly with Stargate infrastructure.

On 1 April 2026, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps explicitly named Stargate UAE as a military strike target, hours after Iranian missile attacks caused AWS to declare hard-down status across Bahrain and Dubai availability zones. Oracle's Dubai data centre had already been struck before the targeting video's release. Iran named Nvidia and Apple by name in the same video, extending the threat surface across the Gulf's AI corridor.

In the same week, OpenAI paused the UK Arm of the Stargate programme, citing British industrial electricity prices roughly four times US levels and grid-connection delays of three to eight years. The company said it would restart when regulation and energy costs permitted. That decision codes London as a talent origin while compute gets built elsewhere. The IRGC's targeting of Stargate marks the first time an AI infrastructure programme has been explicitly named in a state-affiliated military threat; the UK pause adds a second front on which the venture's geography is being contested.

Since late April 2026, Stargate's headline numbers have compressed sharply. OpenAI told investors it now targets roughly $600 billion in compute spend through 2030, down from the $1.4 trillion nameplate, and the company now treats Stargate primarily as an umbrella term for leased rather than owned capacity. OpenAI declined its option on Crusoe's Abilene, Texas flagship lease, suspended the Cobalt Park North Tyneside site, and reconfigured plans for Narvik, Norway. Several senior Stargate executives departed in mid-April. The Abu Dhabi phase continues to track its original timeline: G42 confirmed the first 200 MW delivery on course for Q3 2026, with over 100,000 cubic metres of concrete poured and 5,000 workers on site. In the UK, the reformed Gate 2 grid-connection queue began issuing offers in mid-May 2026, with AI Growth Zones receiving priority access and the right to build their own high-voltage infrastructure, a partial route around the delays that drove the Cobalt Park pause.

OpenAI is now leaning toward delaying its IPO to 2027 rather than accept a lower valuation for an earlier 2026 listing, according to reporting relayed by Bloomberg and Reuters on 25 June 2026. The delay leaves Stargate's principal funder still privately held, with its roughly $1 trillion valuation target untested by public markets even as the venture's own compute commitments keep compressing.