Oracle sends force majeure notice on its New Mexico Stargate data center
- ID
- 28210
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 25 Sep 2026, 2:11 AM
- Fetched
- 25 Sep 2026, 3:17 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/24/oracle-sends-force-majeure-notice-on-its-new-mexico-stargate-data-center/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 6.0
- Created
- 25 Sep 2026, 3:18 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersai_ml_learnerssaas_foundersai_agent_users
What happened
Oracle sent a force majeure notice to the developer of Project Jupiter, its Stargate data center campus in New Mexico, as first reported by Bloomberg — a clause that would let Oracle delay payments if the 2.45 GW facility misses its 2028 target to come online. Oracle says it is not exiting as the campus's main tenant and that "Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule," while Blue Owl Capital, whose unit received the notice, says the notice "does not change the financial commitments to this multi-year project." The underlying problem is energy: an Energy Transfer pipeline feeding the site slipped nearly six months to February 1, 2027 after regulators repeatedly denied permits, and an air-quality permit for the Bloom Energy fuel-cell system powering the campus is still pending with a November 23 decision deadline.
Why it matters
The gating factor on this AI campus is a gas pipeline and an air-quality permit, not GPUs — so any roadmap or cost model that assumes abundant cheap inference by 2028 should treat "on schedule" as unverified. The concrete next signal is the November 23 air-quality permit decision for the Bloom Energy fuel cells; if that slips, Oracle's payment-delay clause becomes live and the 2028 online target moves.
Discussion angle
If power supply and permits — not chip supply — gate AI capacity, how should builders hedge compute availability and pricing assumptions for 2026-2028 plans, and is this the same constraint pattern likely to shape Southeast Asian data center buildouts?