Privately held artificial intelligence (A.I.) startup OpenAI is opening its first permanent London, United Kingdom (U.K.) office.
The new office will have capacity for more than 500 staff and is being opened after the company halted a major A.I. infrastructure project in the United Kingdom earlier this year.
OpenAI has signed a lease on an 88,500 square foot office space. In February, OpenAI announced that it would make London its largest research hub outside of the U.S.
OpenAI’s new office space is located in the King’s Cross area of London, home to a slew of other major technology companies, including Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META).
News of the London office comes after OpenAI confirmed that it had paused plans for its U.K. Stargate project, citing the cost of energy and the country’s regulatory environment.
The decision to halt plans for the Stargate project was considered a blow to the U.K.’s A.I. buildout. Energy prices in the U.K. are among the highest in the world.
Stargate is a consortium of technology companies that aims to build out a network of advanced A.I. data centres.
The U.K. has been looking to position itself as a leading A.I. hub globally, but it lags behind the U.S. and China in technology and funding.
The British government has launched an “AI Opportunities Action Plan” and A.I. startups in the U.K. have increasingly been raising large sums from venture capitalists.
Venture capital funding in the U.K. has hit $6.7 billion U.S. so far this year, according to data from Dealroom, just shy of the $8.2 billion U.S. raised in all of 2025.
OpenAI is privately held and its stock doesn’t trade on a public exchange.
