All of Norway, and Northern Norway in particular, is furious over the project that is to drain the region of electricity through the “electrification” of Melkøya. This is the stupidest political project in history, and while Melkøya receives all the attention, another gigantic electricity sinkhole in Northern Norway passes entirely under the radar: the Nscale data centre in Narvik.
Nscale’s gigantic AI centre in Narvik is under construction and bears the official name “Stargate Norway” (all green projects receive such idiotic, “visionary” names created by nine-year-olds), and it is naturally not cheap: the AI data centre will cost approximately ten billion kroner, and the development is being carried out by Aker and Nscale in cooperation with OpenAI.
Risk-free heavy industry requires risk relief
Even though everyone in management insists that building data centres is entirely risk-free, they paradoxically also insist that the construction of such “green industry” requires “risk relief”. That relief is provided by the state and the taxpayers, through a state loan from Export Financing Norway (Eksfin) of 2.2 billion kroner. Export, you say? Well, a data centre exports data and computing power, does it not? See?
According to Minister of Trade and Industry Cecilie Myrseth, the project has an expected export share well above the 50 per cent requirement, which enables Eksfin to step in with billions in state export financing. So how does the private multi-billion company Aker, (in which the immensely wealthy Kjell Inge Røkke owns 27.3 per cent of the shares,) receive goodwill, approval, electricity, and financing from the public sector? Through what the government calls “active industrial policy” that creates dubious value creation, and not least: political connections.
A new pilot for the political waters
In order to navigate the political waters in Norway, one requires not merely competence, innovation, entrepreneurial spirit, or good ideas. One requires connections. On 13 October 2025, it became clear that Kjell Inge Røkke’s son, the green non-politician Kristian Røkke, was the new chief executive officer of Nscale. According to Aker chief Øyvind Eriksen, he played an absolutely decisive role during the planning phase for the data centre, but it did not last long: already on 14 April 2026, a new CEO was installed.
That position went to Stian Jenssen. And who is he, then? He is a member of the Labour Party, and worked for ten years as Jens Stoltenberg’s right-hand man, closest adviser, and chief of staff in NATO until the end of 2024. From there he entered Kjell Inge Røkke’s Industry Capital Partners (ICP), and from there he was recruited to the top data-centre position. So here we are speaking of the right man in the right place, at the right time.
Jenssen now bears the highest operational responsibility for Nscale’s data centres in the region. This includes the existing facility in Glomfjord, the gigantic development in Narvik, as well as planned projects in Fauske and Skien: Fauske and Skien, you ask? Indeed: the plans for an AI data centre in Fauske were launched in October 2025, and Nscale released the news of a data centre wall-to-wall with the planned Google data centre in January 2026.
Astronomical electricity demand beyond reality
The foundation stone for “Stargate Norway” was laid in autumn 2025. In spring/summer 2027, the electricity sinkhole in Narvik is to open the floodgates for 230 MW of power initially, corresponding to around 110,000 households. That is two years before Melkøya is scheduled to commence operations (which the nine-year-old has named “Snøhvit Future”). It is to draw a healthy 360 MW, if any electricity remains, for Nscale has announced an increased power demand to 290 MW, or 12.5 terawatt-hours.
The data centre in Narvik will thus consume more electricity than the entirety of Oslo, or 8–9 per cent of Norwegian power production. Together, Nscale and Melkøya may require 650 MW of electricity. That is nearly 4.5 Alta power plants, but no new hydroelectric, gas, or nuclear power stations are to be built! Offshore wind is to be built instead… which will likewise not be built.
But this is nothing in comparison with what the government has invited to the green hydroelectric banquet in the form of data centres: 3500 MW has already been reserved in the power grid. Or 23.3 Alta power plants. Nor is that all: around 20,000 MW has been reported or is queuing to obtain access to electricity (133 Alta power plants, or three nuclear power stations). This corresponds to more than Norway’s total electricity consumption, and the authorities say yes to everything. For the mass immigration of foreign data centres is also the new oil.
A feast of prices, a feast of money, and a feast of dividends, all to be paid by you
Anyone with an IQ even slightly above 80 understands that this is neither sustainable, intelligent, nor feasible. Something must give way, but no one within the political elite understands this. They say yes to everything, and solve every problem with magic tricks, green fantasy electricity, and your money. And when this goes seriously wrong, they flee from responsibility and pretend that they were geniuses. Precisely like Angela Merkel in Germany, or Fredrik Reinfeldt in Sweden regarding immigration. So what will happen?
Well, the data centres WILL be built, and they will devour entirely real electricity from the grid, even though Statnett itself describes the power situation in Northern Norway as “precarious” and has rejected new industrial projects. At the same time, the Støre government promised in May 2022 to double Norway’s power supply. Nothing less.
This is to be solved with offshore wind, because the wind-turbine salesmen have declared it damned clever, and have surely lubricated the politicians with green Swix beneath the table. Incidentally, this is the very same thing Angela Merkel promised the Germans in 2010, but it did not work there either. Wind power cannot even operate a single small detached house, because everything in society requires stable electricity 24/7. Data centres not least.
You have only seen the beginning of the Norwegian power catastrophe
The offshore wind doubling will likewise not be built, because most investors have already learned that offshore wind is an economic catastrophe. No new hydroelectric power stations will be built, because environment. We shall receive no new gas-fired power stations, because climate. And we shall receive no nuclear power stations, because bureaucracy. So… what happens?
Well, it stops itself: there are no power stations in Northern Norway capable of operating these data centres. And you cannot transfer the electricity from the EU, because the distance is too great. You cannot operate them with wind power without constructing new “balancing power stations” — and they will not be built. In the real world, the likelihood that Northern Norway will experience “brownouts”, power crisis, and exploding electricity prices is very high.
Any sensible politician with even a trace of social responsibility would naturally demand that new data centres construct their own hydroelectric, nuclear, or gas-fired power station. There is no reason why society should bear the cost of this industry’s raw material. They possess more than enough money, yet escape by shifting the bill onto you.
The policy is in fact completely insane, but that is precisely why the data centres flock around Norway: because the voters have elected naïve technological illiterates to govern the country with EU climate policy instead of national energy policy, as we warned already in 2018. Naivety is the most important resource for the private forces behind the data-centre boom — which actually invest in their own power stations without saying so aloud to anyone:
For all data centres possess their own diesel power stations in the basement, capable of operating production for an entire week when the rest of society fails. The remainder of Northern Norway does not possess that — apart from Svalbard, which is operated precisely by diesel generators in the name of the environment.
There you have Støre’s “green transition” and “safe governance” for the future.