Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised May 29, 2026

Nscale

Nscale is a Europe-based technology company specializing in AI-ready data centers and high-performance GPU cloud infrastructure. Headquartered in London, the company was founded in 2024 by Joshua Payne.

Last revised
May 29, 2026
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≈ 4 min
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Source
Wikipedia ↗
Nscale
Company type
Private
IndustryAI Infrastructure
FoundedMay 2024 (2024-05) in London, United Kingdom
FounderJoshua Payne
Headquarters
United Kingdom Edit this on Wikidata
ProductsAI Services, AI Private Cloud, AI Factories
Websitehttps://www.nscale.com/

Nscale is a Europe-based technology company specializing in AI-ready data centers and high-performance GPU cloud infrastructure.1 Headquartered in London, the company was founded in 2024 by Joshua Payne.2

As a full-stack hyperscaler, the company delivers infrastructure to support the compute demands of artificial intelligence, machine learning and high-performance computing projects.3

History

Nscale was incorporated on May 29, 2024, by co-founders Josh Payne and Nathan Townsend.1 The company began as an offshoot of Arkon Energy as a provider of infrastructure for crypto mining, according to the Financial Times.4 Arkon was based in Melbourne, and Payne is Australian.5 The FT reported that "Nscale was born (from “stealth mode”) out of Arkon Energy, a Melbourne, Australia-based crypto miner following a $155mn Series A funding round in December 2024. At the same time, Nscale's bitcoin mining operations were being wound down."6

Nscale's Series B investment round in 2025 raised $1.1 billion from companies like "Aker, the Norwegian industrial investment company, with additional participation from a raft of firms including NVIDIA, Nokia and Dell".7

By October 2025, Nscale secured $433 million in a pre-Series C SAFE funding round.8 In March 2026, Nscale raised $2 billion in Series C funding as former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, former Yahoo! president Susan Decker, and former U.K. deputy prime minister Nick Clegg joined its board.49 The company has now achieved a valuation of $14.6 billion according to The Times.10 The Times reported that NVIDIA cofounder Jensen Huang said that by the end of 2026 “we’ll probably have 300,000 GPUs [AI chips] put online with Nscale … we’re going to have a technology company in the UK over the next six years or so … that scales up to £50 billion”.10

Nscale states its involvement with 50 data centres, and according to The Times, "11 are listed on its website and the first data centre of its own, in Loughton, Essex, is scheduled to be available in the first three months of 2027, a slight slip from the “Q4 2026” it had previously predicted."10

In April 2026, BT announced that Nscale would build up to 14 megawatts of AI data centre infrastructure on three existing BT-owned sites in the UK.11

Nscale is also expanding into the US market with its acquisition of the Monarch Compute Campus in West Virginia.12

Partnerships & projects

  • Nscale has a partnership with Microsoft to supply the tech firm with 200,000 NVIDIA chips.13 The company is working with other US tech firms like Open AI and NVIDIA to create "a U.K. version of Stargate — a massive AI infrastructure scheme — with its first data centers slated to be located on the site of a former coal power station in Northumberland, north-east England."14
  • In September 2024, Nscale partnered with Singtel to expand Graphics Processing Unit as a Service (GPUaaS) capacity across Europe and Southeast Asia. The agreement provided Nscale access to NVIDIA H100 GPUs through Singtel’s Paragon platform and data center infrastructure from Nxera, while Singtel gained access to Nscale’s AMD and NVIDIA accelerator capacity in Europe for regional AI workloads.15
  • Nscale partnered with Vast Data in October 2025 to deploy its AI Operating System as the data layer for its global AI cloud infrastructure, supporting the scaling of 300,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs globally.16
References

References

  1. "Nscale explained: Everything you need to know | Computer Weekly". ComputerWeekly.com. Retrieved 2026-05-06.
  2. Kanetkar, Riddhi. "Exclusive: Read the 9-page memo hyperscaler startup Nscale used to raise a $155 million Series A". Business Insider. Retrieved 2026-05-06.
  3. "AI data center builder Nscale nabs $155M investment". SiliconANGLE. 2024-12-09. Retrieved 2026-05-12.
  4. Ashworth, Louis (12 March 2026). "Nscale's borrowed credibility". Financial Times.
  5. Ashworth, Louis (19 September 2025). "Is the 'British firm' at the heart of Britain's AI plans actually British?". Financial Times.
  6. Ashworth, Louis (23 March 2026). "Nscale's credit history (slightly chipped)". Financial Times.
  7. Browne, Ryan (2025-09-25). "British AI firm Nscale raises $1.1 billion in Nvidia-backed funding round". CNBC. Retrieved 2026-03-29.
  8. say, Georgia Butler Have your (2026-05-21). "Nscale closes $433m pre-Series C SAFE funding round". www.datacenterdynamics.com. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  9. Heim, Anna (2026-03-09). "Sandberg, Clegg join Nscale board as this 'Stargate Norway' startup hits $14.6B valuation". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2026-05-19.
  10. Hurley, James (2026-03-13). "Is the star-studded optimism around Nscale on the money?". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 2026-03-28.
  11. "BT to work with Nscale to accelerate UK sovereign AI capability, powered by NVIDIA". BT to work with Nscale to accelerate UK sovereign AI capability, powered by NVIDIA. Retrieved 2026-05-11.
  12. "Nscale announces major US expansion". Telecoms. Retrieved 2026-03-28.
  13. "UK's Nscale to supply Microsoft with 200,000 Nvidia AI chips". Reuters. 15 October 2025.
  14. "US tech firms pour £30B into UK as Trump lands". POLITICO. 2025-09-16. Retrieved 2026-03-29.
  15. Trueman, Charlotte (2026-05-14). "Singtel and Nscale announce partnership to boost GPU capacity across Europe and Southeast Asia". www.datacenterdynamics.com. Retrieved 2026-05-19.
  16. "Nscale and VAST Data Partner to Build Global AI Infrastructure". Techerati. 2025-11-04. Retrieved 2026-05-26.