OpenAI has paused plans to roll out a series of data centres across the UK, citing concerns over the cost of energy and regulations.
The Stargate UK project was announced in September with the goal of giving Britain “sovereign compute capabilities” that would bolster the government’s strategy to rapidly deploy AI throughout the economy. The firm said the initiative would help to accelerate scientific breakthroughs, improve productivity and drive economic growth.
OpenAI said it still saw “huge potential” in the UK’s AI sector but did not want to “move forward” until the right conditions, such as “regulation and the cost of energy to enable long-term infrastructure investment” were met.
The firm has never made a profit because of the extremely high cost of running an AI platform and limited monetisation of its users. Only about 5% of ChatGPT users are paying subscribers and around 860 million users use the service for free. Internal financial documents and analyst reports suggest it is on...