OpenAI targets Canada for data centres after abandoning British plans

With its plans in the United Kingdom on ice, OpenAI is actively scouting Canada for data centre partnerships to power its rapidly expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure.

George Osborne, the tech company’s managing director for country partnerships, revealed the plans at an investment summit in Toronto. He pointed directly to Canada’s abundant land and cheap, reliable energy as the primary resources OpenAI needs to construct its next generation of computing hubs.

The interest is a significant political win for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose government hosted the summit to draw $1 trillion of private investment into the country over the next five years. Osborne, who was the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016, praised Carney's approach, calling it “one of the clearer plans for AI adoption of a western government.”

The two men have a long professional history. In 2012, Osborne hired Carney—then running the Bank of Canada—to take over as Governor of the Bank of England. Fourteen years later, they are talking business again, though this time Osborne is representing Silicon Valley's most prominent startup.

The collapse of 'Stargate UK'

OpenAI’s turn towards Canada comes after the collapse of its ambitious British plans. In April, the company quietly suspended "Stargate UK", a planned data hub in the north-east of England that was intended to start with 8,000 Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) and eventually scale up to 31,000.

The British project struggled under the weight of high operating costs and infrastructure backlogs. Industrial electricity in the UK is roughly four times more expensive than in the US or Scandinavia. Britain's power grid is also heavily congested; local grid connection requests surged from 41 gigawatts in November 2024 to 125 gigawatts by June 2025.

There were also signs of poor preparation. A report by The Guardian revealed that OpenAI executives had never actually visited the proposed site, and a £1.9 billion contract publicised by the British government was never actually signed. Regulatory uncertainty around copyright exemptions for AI training data also stalled progress.

Norway shows the alternative

Where the UK stalled, Norway succeeded by offering exactly what OpenAI is now looking for in Canada.

The "Stargate Norway" project, located in Narvik, is already under construction. Powered by 230 megawatts of local hydropower, it is designed to run 100,000 Nvidia GPUs by the end of this year.

European governments are desperately trying to match this pace. The European Union has launched a €20 billion initiative to co-fund up to seven "gigafactories" for data infrastructure, with bids closing on 12 November. France has already submitted a $10 billion proposal.

But Canada has the immediate advantage of space and power, alongside a friendly political environment. Beyond infrastructure, OpenAI is also deepening its commercial footprint in the country. The company recently signed its first Canadian news licensing deal with local publisher Villager Media, securing access to regional content to train and populate its models.