Happy Monday! OpenAI is taking a bold step with its first data center initiative in Europe: Stargate Norway. The facility, nestled in Narvik, taps into the region’s renewable hydropower and cool climate — a compelling combo for sustainable AI infrastructure. With an initial 230MW of compute power (scaling to 520MW), it’s a statement move as OpenAI’s “for-countries” initiative gains momentum. It is also a live illustration of why this 38% CAGR figure for AI infrastructure building looks conservative, even. Meanwhile, Washington has introduced new legislation to relax regulation around AI experimentation in regional ‘sandboxes’ for the financial services industry to more freely capitalise on all of this compute power and algorithmic pyrotechnics.
Juan Pedro Tomás
Editor
RCRTech
AI Infrastructure Top 3
Stargate Norway to launch: OpenAI has unveiled Stargate Norway, a massive hydro-powered AI data center with 100,000 GPUs, part of a sovereign AI push that includes regional access, sustainability, and pan-European partnerships.
Infra surge — in numbers: The global AI data center market is set to
soar past $165B by 2034 as governments and tech giants race to build sustainable, high-performance infrastructure for the AI age.
AI test labs for banks: New US bill proposes new AI Innovation Labs
at seven federal agencies for controlled AI testing by banks etc; lawmakers want fast AI innovation and safe AI adoption.
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AI Today: What You Need to Know
More AI infra forecasts: The AI infra market soared past $60B in 2023 and is forecast to grow at a CAGR above 30% through 2030 — driven by demand for training, inference, and edge deployments. That’s just one of many predictions.
EU’s $30B on AIDCs: Europe is investing €30B in AI gigafactories to boost competitiveness, overcome infrastructure gaps, and support startups with computing power — positioning the region for leadership in the AI industrial revolution.
SAP Qs EU AIDC plan: SAP boss Christian Klein has argued Europe should prioritize AI software over infrastructure, challenging NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang, and highlighting Europe’s strength in industry AI apps, not chip-hungry data centers.
AI talent wars: What to spend more money on: infrastructure or people? Even hefty compensation packages don’t guarantee that top AI talent will be enticed, as Meta has found out.
Oil field data centers? US oil-field services firm Baker Hughes is getting into the AI infra game. It has spent $13.6B on Chart Industries to serve the liquefied natural gas and data center markets. It gazumped a Chart deal with Flowserve.
Gulf bets on AI oil: Trump’s UAE visit a couple of months back marked a major AI push, unveiling a vast UAE-US campus and easing chip exports. Backed by sovereign wealth, the Gulf aims to become a global AI infrastructure hub.
AI in four sectors: From detecting fraud to curing disease, agentic AI isn’t just smart — it’s rewriting the rules of how entire industries work. So says CIO magazine, which profiles the tech in banking, insurance, healthcare, and retail.
AI legal talent: Law agency Axiom claims to have over 850 AI-trained legal pros on its ‘bench’, a 325% increase from last year. It has run a poll and found 94% of legal departments want to combine AI tech with AI talent.
