London-based Nscale, which was founded less than 18 months ago as a spinout from a crypto mining firm, has swiftly evolved into one of the continent’s most ambitious cloud infrastructure players. Its latest coup, a $14 billion deal with Microsoft, positions it as a core supplier of Nvidia chips for AI data centres worldwide.
Microsoft will purchase around 200,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs from Nscale, including 75,000 units earmarked for its projects in Norway and the UK. The remainder will support large-scale deployments in the U.S. and Portugal, with Nscale set to install 104,000 GPUs at an AI campus in Texas and 12,600 in Portugal over the next 18 months. The agreement, valued at an estimated $23 billion based on earlier announcements, marks one of the largest infrastructure commitments in Europe’s AI race.
From record funding to IPO ambitions
Nscale’s funding trajectory has been nothing short of extraordinary. The company recently closed Europe’s largest-ever Series B at $1.1 billion and followed it up with another $433 million raise. This capital surge underscores investor confidence in Nscale’s mission to power the next generation of AI infrastructure.
Now valued at $3.1 billion, Nscale plans to go public as early as 2026. CEO Josh Payne confirmed that the firm’s “public market ambitions” could materialise by the back end of next year. While the listing venue remains undisclosed, the move could make Nscale one of the most significant European IPOs in the data centre sector this decade.
Building a new cloud powerhouse
Nscale’s strategy is to reimagine how cloud capacity is built and leased for AI workloads. The company operates and develops data centres tailored to high-performance GPU demands, directly serving tech giants like Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI. Earlier this year, it pledged a £2.5 billion investment in UK data centre infrastructure, expanding its footprint across Europe, North America, and the Middle East.
The scale and speed of Nscale’s ascent highlight a broader trend: Europe’s determination to carve out sovereignty in cloud and compute infrastructure. With Microsoft as a key partner and overwhelming investor demand for its next funding round, Nscale is redefining what an AI infrastructure company can achieve in record time. As it prepares for a potential IPO, all eyes are on how this young powerhouse will shape the future of global data ecosystems.
