OpenAI announced Stargate UAE on 22 May 2025, with 200MW expected to go live in 2026. Official statements later pointed to the third quarter of 2026 for that first phase, and in September G42 said work was progressing as planned. As of 22 October 2026 we have found no announcement from OpenAI, G42, Khazna or the Emirates News Agency (WAM) that the first 200MW is operating. Expected is not the same as live. Intelligence Age Gulf wrote this on 30 September 2026 and updated it on 22 October 2026.
Stargate UAE: announced, expected, still unconfirmed
22 May 2025
OpenAI announces Stargate UAE
On 22 May 2025 OpenAI announced Stargate UAE, a 1GW compute cluster in Abu Dhabi, with 200MW “expected to go live in 2026”. It named G42, Oracle, NVIDIA, Cisco and SoftBank as partners. That announcement is the news day this thread starts from. Whether that first block is operating is a later question.
- Primary source: OpenAI — Introducing Stargate UAE
5 December 2025
The first 200MW is scheduled for the third quarter of 2026
The National reported on 5 December 2025 that Stargate UAE’s first phase, 200MW of the 1GW cluster, was due for completion in the third quarter of 2026, with more than 5,000 workers on site. On 8 July 2026 the UAE Minister of Investment, Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi, told the Emirates News Agency (WAM) that the expected completion of the first phase during the third quarter of 2026 was one of the milestones ahead. Emarat Alyoum published his remarks.
13 August 2026
Khazna says construction continued through the conflict
Khaleej Times reported on 13 August 2026 on the 5GW UAE–US AI Campus, where an initial 200MW was targeted for delivery in 2026. Greg Jasmin, chief commercial officer of Khazna Data Centers, said Khazna remained on track to hand over capacity to end-user customers that year. He said two 100MW data-centre buildings had been enclosed within about 12 months of the announcement, and that “we did not have any hiccups in the delivery of our site.”
11 September 2026
G42 tells Reuters work is progressing as planned, as the wider campus is redesigned
Reuters reported on 11 September 2026, citing six people familiar with the matter, that the UAE is revising the wider 5GW AI campus into a network of sites. G42 told Reuters that work on the AI campus was progressing as planned, and that “the project’s specifics are subject to continuous review”. Reuters wrote that the first 200MW of Stargate UAE was due to come online this year, and that it could not determine how the changes might affect costs and timelines.