OpenAI never visited key site before Stargate UK launch

TL;DR:

• Freedom of information documents show neither OpenAI nor its partner Nscale held recorded meetings with North Tyneside authorities before Stargate UK was announced.
• £20bn of the £30bn investment the government touted appears to have been hypothetical — the sum the site would need, not money pledged.
• OpenAI paused the project in April, citing UK regulation and high energy costs.

Stargate UK was pitched as OpenAI’s biggest undertaking in Britain, a “major step forward in the US-UK technology partnership” unveiled amid the fanfare of Donald Trump’s visit last year. New FOI documents obtained by the Guardian suggest it was, in the words of one source, “effectively just a government PR stunt”.

An announcement in search of a project

Only chipmaker Nvidia appears to have met the North East Combined Authority — and that was in February 2026, five months after the launch. “Nscale were pretty much told to back the Stargate project, and it caught them completely unaware,” a source said. Nscale said its chief commercial officer travelled to North Tyneside but could not confirm any meeting took place.

The investment figures drew equal scrutiny. Of the £30bn the government said the Cobalt Park growth zone was “set to” attract, £10bn was a separate Blackstone datacentre. Pressed on the remaining £20bn, the government said it represented the sum the site would need to reach 1.1GW of capacity — not commitments from named investors. “In other words,” the Guardian noted, “the government suggested the site would attract £20bn because it needed £20bn.” Campaign group Spotlight on Corruption called that “disingenuous”.

Trade publication Computing, corroborating the account, reported that Nscale’s planned Essex supercomputer — originally due to run by 2026 — remains in early construction. A grid connection was also absent: the site submitted an alternative, redacted power solution instead.

Looking forward

The government insists work continues, with a taskforce co-chaired by the technology secretary and North East mayor Kim McGuinness, and more than 400MW of the planned 1.1GW due online in 2028. But the episode — landing alongside the unravelling renewables promise at the Lanarkshire growth zone — reinforces a pattern the Guardian first flagged in March: UK AI “phantom investments” announced faster than they can be delivered. For businesses banking on growth-zone infrastructure, the credibility of the headline numbers now warrants close reading.