Datacentre investment boom is one of the biggest infrastructure gambles of this era, and Britain may be uniquely exposed
Stargate was to be the world’s biggest AI investment: a $500bn infrastructure project to “secure American leadership in AI”. Never shy of hyperbole, its key backer, the ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, promised “massive economic benefit for the entire world” with facilities to help people “use AI to elevate humanity”.
Now, OpenAI appears to be dropping out of a part of the deal – the expansion of a flagship datacentre stretching across a swathe of land in Abilene, Texas, which has become one of the most visible manifestations of a frenzy of investment in the chips and power plants required to build and run AI. There has been a breakdown in negotiations over project financing, as well as the timeline of when the expanded capacity might come online.
