Nscale is in talks over another Anthropic computing deal worth about $45 billion, a potential boost for the British AI infrastructure company after Microsoft walked away from one of its projects in England.

The contrast is hard to miss. In West Virginia, Nscale is negotiating more business with the company behind Claude. In Loughton, Essex, a delayed electricity connection has complicated a project that was supposed to serve one of its biggest customers. The Anthropic talks were reported on October 19, a day after news of Microsoft's withdrawal.

A second big Anthropic agreement is on the table

Bloomberg first reported the negotiations, citing people familiar with the matter. The companies had not announced a signed agreement in the reporting available at publication, and the terms could change.

The proposed deal would cover a second building at Nscale's Monarch campus in West Virginia, with 460 megawatts of computing capacity using Nvidia Vera Rubin chips, according to Investing.com's account of Bloomberg's report. It said an agreement could be finalized within days.

That would expand an already substantial relationship. Bloomberg reported that Anthropic has existing infrastructure agreements with Nscale worth as much as $44.6 billion, citing Nscale's IPO filing. Anthropic also has a right of first refusal on an anticipated third building at Monarch, the report said.

The existing agreements and the proposed second deal are separate. The latest negotiations concern additional capacity, rather than a fresh announcement of the earlier arrangement.

For Nscale, that prospect arrives while it is preparing to go public. The company announced its U.S. IPO filing on September 18 and said it had applied to list on the New York Stock Exchange as NSCL. At that announcement, neither the number of shares nor the offering price range had been determined.

Microsoft's withdrawal exposes the power problem

Microsoft recently terminated its agreement for the Loughton data center, according to The Telegraph's October 18 report, subsequently covered by Reuters. The site had faced repeated delays, with grid officials reportedly telling Nscale that electricity would not be available until the 2030s.

That timetable is the problem a large customer contract cannot solve on its own: the computing capacity needs a usable power supply before it can earn its keep.

Nscale told Reuters:

Our relationship with Microsoft remains strong and long-term, and this unfortunate London-wide grid issue has no impact on our other contracts.

The company also said it remained committed to Loughton and was exploring alternative power sources, alongside other expansion sites in Britain. Microsoft declined Reuters' request for comment. The Telegraph report did not specify Microsoft's reason for withdrawing.

Nscale's published plans for Monarch offer a different approach to electricity supply. The company says the West Virginia campus is designed to generate its power on-site, independently of the public grid, with Caterpillar involved in power generation.

That is relevant to the comparison with Loughton, although Nscale still has to build and deliver the planned capacity. A project designed around its own power generation has a different infrastructure plan from one waiting for a grid connection.

Nvidia is backing the buildout

Nscale has raised money to support those ambitions. In a September 25 announcement, it disclosed $3.36 billion in convertible financing led by Third Point, with Nvidia among the participants.

The structure matters. Nscale said $2.36 billion came in an initial closing tranche, with another $1 billion committed by Nvidia and expected to be funded in mid-November. The full headline amount was therefore not all cash received at that initial closing.

Founder and CEO Josh Payne said in that announcement:

This marks a milestone for Nscale as we continue scaling our full-stack AI infrastructure to meet unprecedented global demand. With the backing of these world-class investors, we are strongly positioned to accelerate our data center buildouts globally.

As previously reported by Apex, investors are weighing AI infrastructure demand against the cost of financing it. CoreWeave's debt burden was a prominent concern during the recent selloff.

A signed Anthropic agreement would give Nscale more business to point to as it makes its case to investors. Loughton shows the other side of that pitch: winning the customer is one job; delivering the power and computing capacity is another.