Nscale inks massive AI infrastructure deal with Microsoft

AI startup Nscale has signed a major deal with Microsoft to bring Nvidia AI hardware to multiple data centers.

The AI ​​cloud provider announced Wednesday that it has signed a deal with Microsoft to bring nearly 200,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs to three data centers in Europe and one in the U.S.

These GPUs will be delivered through Nscale’s owned operations and through a joint venture with investment firm Aker, one of Nscale’s investors.

About half of those GPUs, 104,000, will head to a Texas data center leased by Ionic Digital in the next 12 to 18 months. Nscale plans to increase its footprint at this site to 1.2 gigawatts, the company said.

Nscale will also deploy 12,600 GPUs at its Start Campus data center in Sines, Portugal, starting in the first quarter of 2026.

The deal builds on previous plans with both Microsoft and Aker for data centers in Norway and the UK. Nscale will send 23,000 GPUs to its campus in Loughton, England starting in 2027, and the remaining 52,000 GPUs to Microsoft’s AI campus in Narvik, Norway.

“This agreement confirms Nscale’s position as a partner of choice for the world’s most important technology leaders,” Josh Payne, founder and CEO of Nscale, said in a company press release. “Few companies are equipped to deliver GPU deployments at this scale, but we have the experience and have built a global pipeline to do so.”

It’s a bold claim by Bain, considering Nscale was founded in 2024. Since its launch, the company has raised more than $1.7 billion from strategic partners including Aker, Nokia, and Nvidia. Nscale has also raised from investors such as Sandton Capital Partners, G Squared, Point72 and others. Payne told the Financial Times that the company is eyeing an initial public offering as early as the end of next year.

“The pace at which we have expanded our capacity demonstrates our readiness and commitment to efficiency, sustainability and providing our customers with the latest technologies available. It is a clear signal that Nscale is setting a new standard for how we deliver the next wave of AI infrastructure,” Payne said in the statement.

GPU trades have been on the rise in recent weeks. OpenAI announced it purchased six gigawatts worth of chips from AMD last week. OpenAI also recently signed a deal with Nvidia where Nvidia will invest up to $100 billion in the company for 10 gigawatts worth of chips in September.