UK start-up Nscale, which specialises in infrastructure for artificial intelligence, has signed an extended deal with Microsoft. As part of the collaboration, the company will supply around 200,000 Nvidia chips to data centres in the US and Europe – one of the largest contracts of its kind announced publicly. According to the Financial Times, the deal could be worth up to $14bn, although Nscale does not comment on financial details.
It is a move that is part of the global race for computing power, which today defines the real position of AI players. Microsoft – a key investor in OpenAI – is intensively expanding its own infrastructure to become independent of external providers and secure resources for years to come. For Nscale, in turn, this is an opportunity to join the exclusive group of Big Tech infrastructure partners.
Deliveries will begin in 2025 and will include new data centres in Texas and Portugal, among others. Dell Technologies will also be involved in the contract, suggesting that Nscale will act as an AI infrastructure integrator rather than just a hardware supplier. This follows an earlier project in Norway, where a joint venture between Nscale and Aker is preparing an AI campus with 52,000 Nvidia GPUs for Microsoft.
Nscale, which in September raised $1.1bn in funding from Aker and Nokia, among others, has consistently positioned itself as the European answer to US-based hyperscalers. The ambition is clear: to build a continental AI infrastructure at scale to rival AWS and Google Cloud.
In the background, the strategic question remains – will Europe manage to maintain control of key AI resources if the US giants remain the main beneficiaries? The Microsoft contract strengthens Nscale, but at the same time shows how strong the AI market’s dependence on capital and demand from the US is
