Alongside Mistral and its sky‑high fundraising, another standout in Europe’s AI ecosystem is taking shape. Its name is Nscale. In under a month, this British unicorn — approaching its second birthday — has closed a $1.533 billion round to cement its position in AI-specific infrastructure.
Its goal is clear: to become an AI-focused hyperscaler, delivering end‑to‑end data centers that integrate compute, storage, networking, and management software, capable of running the most demanding AI workloads while safeguarding data sovereignty.
Since the start of the year, the startup has been signing major deals with tech giants.
As a participant in the Stargate project, the European arm of the initiative, Nscale operates an hyperscale campus in Narvik, Norway, developed with Aker ASA — a Norwegian group specializing in engineering and energy — and aligned with OpenAI’s needs. The site already supplies 52,000 GPUs to Microsoft under a multi‑year contract.
Big deal of $14 billion with Microsoft
Most recently, the agreement with Microsoft. The deal could generate up to $14 billion in revenue, according to the Financial Times. In detail, Nscale will provide roughly 104,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs on a Texas‑based hyperscale AI campus of about 240 MW, enabling the phased rollout of NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure services for Microsoft starting in the third quarter of 2026. The site, currently leased to Ionic Digital, could see capacity expanded progressively to 1.2 GW, with Microsoft holding an option for a second phase of 700 MW from late 2027.
In Portugal, Nscale will begin, from the first quarter of 2026, delivering about 12,600 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs to the Start Campus data center in Sines. This multi‑year agreement will enable Microsoft to access NVIDIA AI infrastructure services while offering sovereign AI solutions to European customers within the European Union.
At the same time, this deal complements the project announced last September by Nscale and Microsoft to deploy the United Kingdom’s largest NVIDIA AI supercomputer on Nscale’s AI campus in Loughton. This 50 MW facility, expandable to 90 MW, will host around 23,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs starting in the first quarter of 2027 to support Microsoft Azure services.
“This agreement confirms Nscale’s position as the partner of choice for the world’s leading tech players. Few companies are equipped to deploy GPUs at this scale, but we have the experience and the global pipeline needed,” says CEO and founder Josh Payne.
Nscale fundraising since its inception in 2023
| Date | Amount Raised | Funding Type | Lead Investors | Objective / Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 2023 | $30 M | Seed | Not disclosed | Launch and initial development of AI infrastructures. |
| December 2024 | $155 M | Series A | Sandton Capital Partners, Kestrel 0x1, Blue Sky Capital, Florence Capital | European and North American expansion for AI infrastructures. |
| September 2025 | $1.1 B | Series B | Aker ASA, Nokia, Nvidia, Dell, Fidelity, G Squared, Point72, Sandton Capital, T.Capital | Accelerate the deployment of sovereign AI infrastructures in Europe, the US, and the Middle East. |
| October 2025 | $433 M | Pre‑Series C (SAFE) | Blue Owl, Dell, Nvidia, Nokia, new investors | Strengthen the capacity to deploy sovereign AI infrastructures. |
