Sarah: OpenAI is rethinking Stargate—just as data-center money keeps landing somewhere else.
Matt: This is The Data Center Daily.
Matt: Today: when the anchor tenant starts renting, who inherits the promises tied to the build?
Sarah: Plus, fresh capital in Brazil, an actual solar contract in Singapore, and a storage valuation that cuts through the AI-demand cheerleading.
Sarah: First: Stargate’s new shape.
Sarah: Here's Georgia Butler at Datacenter Dynamics:
Quote: OpenAI has restructured its leadership in light of its decision to rent more AI servers from cloud providers.
Quote: The company is in the midst of a major data center buildout in the US and around the world through its Stargate project
Quote: being undertaken in partnership with Oracle and SoftBank. However
Quote: reports of late have suggested that the company is instead leaning more on renting AI servers from cloud providers and scaling back its
Quote: build-out plans.
Sarah: After the Stargate buildout vision we covered last edition, OpenAI is reorganizing around more rented cloud capacity.
Sarah: DCD reports three lanes now: design, commercial cloud and chip partnerships, and operating the facilities it uses.
Matt: And Abilene is apparently capped at 1.2 gigawatts, versus that 2-gigawatt expansion figure.
Matt: That leaves 800 megawatts out of the plan—who’s carrying the land, transmission-study, and permitting costs tied to it?
Sarah: Sachin Katti now oversees the Stargate groups, and the name has broadened into a strategy for bringing compute online.
Sarah: Conveniently elastic language when owned capacity turns into another company’s leased server fleet.
Matt: Renting can make sense.
Matt: But the cloud provider taking OpenAI’s workload still has to secure power
Matt: water and wires—and those commitments don’t get less physical because the tenant changed its capital structure.
Sarah: Here's Fernanda Guimarães; Daniela Braun at Valor International:
Quote: Goldman Sachs Itaú BBA and Bradesco BBI have been hired to find a new investor for data-center operator Ascenty
Quote: people familiar with the matter said.
Quote: The process is still at an early stage.
Quote: Ascenty is looking to raise about $1 billion through a primary transaction involving a minority stake.
Quote: The proceeds would go to the company and help finance its expansion projects.
Sarah: Ascenty wants about $1 billion for a minority stake, and the money goes into the company—not out to Brookfield or Digital Realty.
Sarah: A primary raise is a cleaner sign they’re funding growth than existing owners taking money off the table.
Matt: Ascenty says its four AI data centers will cost $1.2 billion and add 150 megawatts, all fully contracted by global tech companies.
Matt: Good. Now I want to know the contract shape: firm take-or-pay load
Matt: or customers reserving the right to change their minds when power gets expensive?
Sarah: Goldman Sachs, Itaú BBA, and Bradesco BBI are running the process, but it’s explicitly early stage.
Sarah: After the OpenAI build-to-rent reset
Sarah: that matters: 150 megawatts may be contracted
Sarah: but the $1 billion equity check is still being marketed.
Matt: Brazil gets a real test of whether capital shows up here.
Matt: If investors price those 150 megawatts aggressively, great—build it.
Matt: If they haircut the value, “AI demand” still hasn’t solved the financing and grid-delivery problem.
Sarah: From Jonas Muthoni at Microgrid Media:
Quote: Equinix signed a new renewable-energy power purchase agreement with Flo Energy Singapore on August 18
Quote: 2026 that will add at least 11.5 MWp of rooftop solar capacity for its Singapore data-center portfolio
Quote: with an option to expand to as much as 50 MWp.
Matt: Equinix signed for at least 11.5 megawatts-peak from Flo Energy in Singapore.
Matt: The 50-megawatt figure is just an option, so let’s keep the expansion banner folded until they exercise it.
Sarah: Exactly. A fourth Singapore renewable PPA in two years is a meaningful procurement program.
Sarah: Equinix says the portfolio could reach 215 MWp by 2028, with roughly 250,000 megawatt-hours annually across its Singapore agreements.
Matt: Here’s the useful contrast with the OpenAI piece: a signed PPA tied to industrial and commercial rooftops
Matt: versus a big capacity headline treated like electrons have already shown up at the meter.
Sarah: Rooftop solar won’t turn Singapore into a 24-hour power plant.
Sarah: Still, 11.5 MWp contracted today beats 38.5 MWp of optimistic arithmetic.
Sarah: Here's Latitude Media:
Quote: And yet Form raised its latest round at a $1.75-billion pre-money valuation
Quote: according to Axios: a significant downvaluation from the $3-billion pre-money valuation at which the company raised its Series F in October
Quote: 2024.
Sarah: Form Energy raised $750 million at a $1.75 billion pre-money valuation, down from $3 billion in October 2024.
Sarah: That’s a pretty specific markdown for a company with Minnesota construction underway
Sarah: West Virginia manufacturing scaling
Sarah: and more than $2 billion raised in total.
Matt: Everybody says data centers need hundred-hour batteries.
Matt: Fine—so why is the iron-air company raising at barely over half its last pre-money valuation while its order book is supposedly flying?
Matt: Capital is pricing in a long wait between a promising battery and dependable project cash flow.
Sarah: Latitude’s investor source sees it as a lagging indicator of tighter private markets and money flooding toward AI
Sarah: rather than a vote against Form.
Sarah: Which is awkward when the AI buildout is also being pitched as the reason long-duration storage should be irresistible.
Matt: And after that OpenAI pivot
Matt: customers leaning toward rented compute may be less eager to bankroll multi-day power infrastructure themselves.
Matt: The tax credits survived, sure.
Matt: They don’t make financing costs disappear.
Host: If you’re enjoying The Data Center Daily, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you’re listening.
Host: Reviews help other people find the show, and we’re grateful for your support.
Host: We’re watching Equinix’s Singapore renewable-energy portfolio, which could reach 215 MWp by 2028 if the new PPA scales as planned.
Host: Links to every story are in the show notes, so take a look at the ones that caught your attention.
Host: That’s The Data Center Daily for today.
Host: This is a Lantern Podcast.