Tom's Hardware and Digitimes reported May 2 that OpenAI has in practice walked away from the original Stargate JV model (Jan 2025 announcement: $500B / 10 GW by 2029 with SoftBank + Oracle) and is now pursuing large bilateral compute-leasing deals — primarily with Oracle, plus the recently announced expansion sites. OpenAI itself reportedly described Stargate as 'an umbrella for our compute strategy' rather than a discrete construction program. Stargate Michigan campus (1.4 GW, $16B Saline Township site, financing closed Apr 25 anchored by PIMCO + Blackstone after US banks pulled back) is now structured as a Related Digital build with Oracle as anchor tenant.
Primary source · Tom's Hardware ↗
Why it matters
Direct input to hyperscaler-lease-vs-build.md and bound to BTM-product-surface.md. The structural lesson: even the most aggressive AI buildout in the world has retreated from owning data centers to leasing capacity from purpose-built operators (Oracle, Crusoe, Related Digital). That validates the 'site readiness platform serving the dev-and-lease ecosystem' positioning over an 'AI hyperscaler tools' positioning — Cliff's customers are increasingly the developers/operators, not the AI companies themselves. The Saline financing is also a useful data point on the capital-stack reality: PIMCO had to anchor $10B because US banks retreated on AI-data-center risk; that means the capital available to fund $5B+ site readiness risk is constrained, which sharpens the 'underwrite the site, not just finance it' wedge. Add the financing-anchor pattern (PIMCO/Blackstone equity + insurance-style fixed-rate debt) to the developer-financing layer of the wiki — Cliff's de-rate calculator output is feeding into capital-markets diligence, not just utility filings.
Related filings
NM 4 Democratic lawmakers announced Jul 3 statewide moratorium bill / Reps Chavez Cadena Rubio + Sen Hamblen / January 2027 60-day session / first-in-nation statewide moratorium if passed / paired with microgrid loophole closure + data security / Santa Fe County Jun 30 unanimous 18-month moratorium / 1 MW threshold (lowest in US) / 75x below ERCOT Batch Zero 75 MW / 20x below NY A11560 20 MW / 50x below Lakeland FL 50 MW / 100 MW draft lowered on floor / durability higher than county ordinances / removes state from siting map for duration
Plain-English background on why 'statewide' and '1 MW threshold' are the two most important words in this item. Until this week, every US data center moratorium was either a county ordinance (Linn IA, Washington MD, Prince George's MD, Whitley IN, Clark IN,...
Virginia HB30 conference report / $0.011 per kWh / July 1 2026 effective date / $600M annual revenue cap / supply-agnostic — utility + co-op + competitive + self-supplied / SCC collection / first return due Sep 2026 / 2-year sunset Jul 1 2028 / Spanberger expected to sign / first-in-the-nation per-kWh data center tax
Plain-English version of what just happened. Virginia is the data center capital of the world. Northern Virginia's Loudoun County alone hosts more data center capacity (~3.5 GW operating, another ~7 GW in the queue) than any other county on earth, and...
narrative collision Jun 25 / Data Center Watch 75 projects + $130B blocked / Bain supply chain 'half delayed' / SemiAnalysis pushback: announced-vs-built attrition / political risk vs supply-side risk / determines diligence weighting
Plain-English version. Over the last 30 days, a narrative has hardened in trade press and political coverage: roughly half of US data center capacity 'planned for 2026' will be cancelled or delayed. The claim comes from a few different sources stacked...
FERC show cause orders Jun 18 / Section 206 / PJM MISO SPP CAISO ISO-NE NYISO / 30-day informational report Jul 20 / 60-day tariff response Aug 17 / 90-day abeyance request Aug 3 / five reform categories / cost-shift prevention is the big one / colocation + BTMG rules / flexible-load transmission services
Plain-English version. On June 18, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC, the federal regulator with jurisdiction over the interstate transmission grid) used Section 206 of the Federal Power Act to issue what are called 'show-cause orders'...