AI hyperscaler startup Nscale has signed a major deal with Microsoft to deploy Nvidia AI hardware across multiple data centers.
The AI cloud provider announced Wednesday that it has signed a deal with Microsoft to deploy approximately 200,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs across three data centers in Europe and one in the United States.
These GPUs are offered through businesses owned by Nscale and through a joint venture with investment firm Aker, one of Nscale’s investors.
About half of those GPUs, 104,000, will be sent to Ionic Digital’s leased data center in Texas over the next 12 to 18 months. Nscale plans to increase its footprint at this location to 1.2 gigawatts, the company said.
Nscale also plans to deploy 12,600 GPUs at its Start Campus data center in Sines, Portugal, starting in the first quarter of 2026.
The agreement builds on previous plans with both Microsoft and Aker for data centers in Norway and the United Kingdom. Starting in 2027, Nscale plans to send 23,000 GPUs to its campus in Loughton, UK, and the remaining 52,000 GPUs to Microsoft’s AI campus in Narvik, Norway.
“This agreement confirms Nscale’s status as the partner of choice for the world’s most important technology leaders,” Josh Payne, Nscale’s founder and CEO, said in a company press release. “Few companies are equipped to deploy GPUs at this scale, but we have the experience and are building a global pipeline to do so.”
tech crunch event
san francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
Considering Nscale was founded in 2024, this is a bold claim from Payne. Since its founding, the company has raised more than $1.7 billion from strategic partners including Aker, Nokia, and Nvidia. Nscale has also raised funding from investors including Sandton Capital Partners, G Squared, and Point72. Payne told the Financial Times that the company is considering an IPO as early as the end of next year.
“The pace of our capacity expansion demonstrates both our readiness and our commitment to efficiency, sustainability, and providing our customers with the most advanced technology available. It’s clear that Nscale is setting a new standard for how the next wave of AI infrastructure will be delivered,” Payne said in the release.
GPU trading has been active in recent weeks. OpenAI announced last week that it would buy 6 gigawatts worth of chips from AMD. OpenAI recently signed a deal with Nvidia in September that saw Nvidia invest up to $100 billion in the company in exchange for 10 gigawatts worth of chips.
