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London, October 15, 2025- UK data centre start-up Nscale has struck a landmark USD 14 billion infrastructure deal with Microsoft, marking one of the largest AI hardware supply agreements in Europe’s history and cementing the company’s rapid ascent from stealth-mode disruptor to global hyperscale contender.
Under the agreement, Nscale will supply Microsoft with up to 200,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs across new hyperscale data centre campuses in Texas, USA, and Sines, Portugal, over the next 18 months. The contract underscores Microsoft’s urgency to expand its AI infrastructure footprint amid an unprecedented demand surge for training and inference capacity.
Nscale’s Texas deployment alone will host over 104,000 GPUs, integrated into a 240 MW power campus leased via Ionic Digital, with scalable options for up to 1.2 GW by 2027. A further 12,600 GPUs are slated for Portugal, tapping into Europe’s growing renewable power grid.
“This partnership represents a defining moment for Nscale as we move from regional operator to global enabler of the AI economy,” said Nscale CEO Jonathan Evans. “Our collaboration with Microsoft validates our design philosophy, data centres engineered from the ground up for AI workloads, not retrofitted for them.”
Microsoft confirmed the deal in a statement, noting its alignment with the company’s broader AI infrastructure roadmap. “We’re scaling responsibly and strategically to meet the compute needs of our customers,” said Noelle Walsh, Corporate Vice President of Cloud Operations and Innovation at Microsoft. “Partnerships like this allow us to build with agility, efficiency, and sustainability in mind.”
The timing of the deal is significant. Backed by Nvidia, Nscale has emerged as one of Europe’s fastest-growing infrastructure firms, fresh off a USD 1.1 billion funding round that drew investors including SoftBank Vision Fund and Mubadala. With this Microsoft contract, analysts estimate Nscale’s valuation could exceed USD 20 billion ahead of its planned IPO in late 2026.
For Microsoft, the agreement reflects a strategy of distributed capacity expansion beyond its traditional hyperscale hubs. The Texas site provides low-cost energy and proximity to U.S. AI research clusters, while Portugal offers renewable access and regulatory alignment with the EU’s data sovereignty standards.
As the AI arms race intensifies, Nscale’s challenge will be execution, balancing massive capex commitments with grid readiness and regulatory compliance across multiple regions.
“The technology and partnerships are there,” Evans said. “Now it’s about precision, delivering every rack, every megawatt, on schedule.”
With its bold push toward a global IPO and Microsoft’s backing, Nscale has moved from relative obscurity to the centre of the AI infrastructure conversation, proof that even in a market dominated by giants, agility and ambition still count for scale.
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