Nscale Ltd. is discussing a massive compute sale to Anthropic PBC that insiders say could be close to $45 billion, with a signing possible within days. The caveat: discussions are still fluid, details may shift, and neither company is commenting publicly.
Anthropic already has agreements with Nscale for infrastructure valued at up to about $44.6 billion, according to the company's IPO filing. The Nvidia-backed developer is seeking a second major arrangement with the Claude maker tied to its Monarch campus in West Virginia.
People familiar say the second Monarch building is designed to deliver 460 megawatts of computing power and would run on Nvidia's latest Vera Rubin AI chips. Anthropic also holds a right of first refusal for the campus's expected third building.
According to Nscale's filing, once fully developed, Monarch's gross power capacity could exceed 8 gigawatts. In March, Microsoft said it had entered into a letter of intent tied to a planned data center at the site, but it exited the West Virginia location in the summer; according to Bloomberg News, that departure paved the way for Anthropic to take over as the tenant.
A fresh multibillion-dollar contract would bolster Nscale's pitch as it targets roughly a $30 billion IPO valuation, though a group of investors has urged the company to trim that goal. Nscale publicly filed in September and has not kicked off formal marketing, with the 15 day waiting window already past; it is addressing SEC comments and plans to start marketing once those are resolved, according to people familiar.
The company raised $3.36 billion last month in a pre-IPO round led by Dan Loeb's Third Point, with Nvidia, Apollo Global Management Inc., Citadel, Hudson Bay Capital and Abu Dhabi Investment Council among participants. At the same time, worries about the heavy borrowing underpinning the AI data-center boom have made investors more cautious, weighing on everything from chipmaker stocks to cloud-computing debt.
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Anthropic has become a prized customer for data center operators and is one of Nscale's largest. Beyond Nscale, it has signed a $50 billion agreement with Fluidstack Ltd., a $10 billion deal with Volta Infrastructure Holdings Ltd., and a $45 billion arrangement with Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Anthropic carried a $965 billion valuation in May and is anticipated to pursue an IPO in the next few months that could set records. It continues to seek more computing capacity to fuel growth.
The bottom line: If this near $45 billion package lands, it would add visibility to Nscale's revenue pipeline into its listing and underscore how aggressively Anthropic is securing compute. For your portfolio, the action highlights where capital is concentrating - large scale AI infrastructure - even as financing risks remain in focus.
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