AI data centre startup Nscale has raised a $1.1bn Series B as demands for sovereign compute from governments across the world ramp up.
Founded less than 18 months ago, UK-based Nscale has had a bumper few months, announcing partnerships with tech giants including OpenAI and Nvidia.
The startup, which runs and leases data centre capacity specifically for AI uses, said in January it would invest £2.5bn into UK data centre infrastructure over the next three years.
Nscale will spend the cash on deploying AI infrastructure across Europe, North America and the Middle East, it said in a statement. The fresh funds give the startup a valuation of $3.1bn, Bloomberg reported.
The financing was led by industrial investment company Aker ASA, with continued support from existing shareholders, including Sandton Capital, and participation from Blue Owl, Dell, Fidelity Management & Research Company, G Squared, Nokia, Nvidia, Point72 and T.Capital.
“AI is reshaping industries, economies, and national strategies — but it cannot happen without the physical backbone: the data centres, the GPUs and the software to orchestrate them,” said CEO Josh Payne.
The raise includes the £500m Nvidia’s chief Jensen Huang announced the company would invest into the startup last week. At the time, he said that over the next six years Nscale could hit revenue of up to $50bn.
Nscale has inked partnerships with some of the world’s biggest tech companies in recent months.
In July, the startup announced a deal with OpenAI to design and build an AI gigafactory — data centres made to cope with the huge processing requirements of the technology — in Norway.
OpenAI dubbed the plans a European “Stargate” — the name given to a $500bn AI infrastructure project in the US.
Nscale also pledged to furnish UK AI data centres with 60k Nvidia Blackwell GPUs as part of an £11bn investment alongside US hyperscaler Coreweave. Nvidia called it the largest rollout of AI infrastructure in the country’s history.
