In a Tuesday email to staff, 32-year-old founder Josh Payne said Nscale's signed revenue commitments have surged past $100 billion since its March funding round. His note highlighted Microsoft as one of its largest customers, Nvidia as an investor, and financing support arranged with the company's lenders. As Payne put it, "Those commitments are as strong today as the day they were signed."
The message included a clip of construction activity in West Virginia, according to someone familiar with it. Payne said he had been "on the ground at our Monarch campus in West Virginia yesterday," calling the work "incredible," and added, "The enormous scale of the site is the physical depiction of the scale of our ambition."
Per its IPO documents, the Monarch campus can be expanded to exceed 8 gigawatts of gross power. Nscale is also discussing a second agreement with Anthropic PBC tied to Monarch that Bloomberg News said could reach about $45 billion.
Nscale is seeking a public debut that pegs the company near $30 billion, though setbacks building data centers and Microsoft's decision to pull out of a UK project have weighed on that effort. The company filed for a US listing in September but has not begun formal marketing despite the 15 day waiting period being over. People familiar with the situation say Nscale is addressing US Securities and Exchange Commission comments on its paperwork and plans to start marketing once those are cleared. Payne told staff, "We're in a strict quiet period because of the SEC process," limiting what the company can say.
In March, Microsoft said it had agreed in principle to pursue a planned data center at the Monarch site, but it withdrew from the West Virginia location over the summer. That opened the door for Anthropic to take the first building there, Bloomberg News reported. A Microsoft representative has previously stated that the firm is still dedicated to working with Nscale.
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Separately, investors have questioned the pace of AI infrastructure spending, with recent swings in chip stocks and the bonds of cloud computing players reflecting worries that sales may not keep up with outlays. Bloomberg Intelligence's Vasu Kasibhotla wrote that Nscale's outlook depends more on execution and funding than on appetite for AI, pointing to discussions with Anthropic for about $45 billion of compute, Microsoft leaving the postponed Essex site, a six month delay in Norway, and worries about valuation.
Earlier, the Financial Times broke the news of Payne's memo to staff. Nscale's spokesperson declined to comment.
One of Nscale's flagship AI facilities in Norway is running behind by about six months, with 6.4 megawatts live out of a planned 30 megawatts, Bloomberg News reported. Payne also told employees that since the Series C round, "the total value of our contracts has more than doubled and we have doubled the GPUs online, delivering to our customers."
Last month, the company secured $3.36 billion in a pre-IPO financing spearheaded by Dan Loeb's Third Point, drawing backing from Nvidia, Apollo Global Management Inc., Citadel, Hudson Bay Capital, and Abu Dhabi Investment Council. Back in March, Nscale's Series C round valued it at about $14.6 billion, led by Aker ASA and 8090 Industries, with Nvidia and Nokia Oyj participating.
Put together, Nscale is pitching a $30 billion IPO while juggling large customer obligations, project delays and an SEC review. Some investors want that valuation trimmed to $16 billion to $19 billion. The bottom line: the path to pricing likely hinges on clearing SEC comments and demonstrating it has the money, construction execution, and on-schedule delivery of capacity at Monarch and in Norway.
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