Oracle has issued a force majeure notice to the developer of Project Jupiter, a Stargate data center campus being developed in New Mexico, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
Force majeure clauses, which are common in energy and commodities contracts, can release a party from certain contractual obligations when circumstances beyond its control prevent it from meeting them. According to Bloomberg’s sources, Oracle is not attempting to withdraw as the primary tenant of the campus. Instead, the notice could allow the company to postpone payments if the facility fails to meet its planned 2028 launch date.
The notice comes as the rapid expansion of AI data center construction faces increasing scrutiny across the country, while developers are also taking on significant costs to build the computing capacity required by customers such as OpenAI.
Oracle said it does not currently anticipate a delay. “Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule,” Oracle said in a statement to CNBC. “We are fully committed to New Mexico and confident in our path forward.”
Blue Owl Capital, whose unit received the notice, also told CNBC that “this notice does not change the financial commitments to this multi-year project.”
The notice nevertheless comes after a series of challenges at the site, many of which involve its planned energy supply. Project Jupiter is designed to support 2.45 gigawatts of capacity and is expected to rely on gas-powered fuel cells supplied by Bloom Energy. That makes securing a dependable natural gas supply an important part of the project’s schedule.
An Energy Transfer pipeline planned to supply gas to the campus has also been pushed back by nearly six months, with the new expected date set for February 1, 2027. The delay followed repeated permit rejections from regulators. Bloomberg reported in August that the planned pipeline route had been modified after those earlier rejections.
A separate air-quality permit required for the fuel cell system that will provide power to the campus also remains pending. The state’s environment department has until November 23 to make a decision on that permit.
Project Jupiter is among the major facilities planned as part of Stargate, the AI infrastructure initiative announced by Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank with President Donald Trump early in his second term.
The New Mexico campus has faced opposition from local residents and environmental groups and has emerged as a political flashpoint ahead of the midterm elections. According to Bloomberg, Oracle has launched a public outreach effort in the state as it seeks to persuade critics to support the project.
