Takeaways by Saasverse AI
- Microsoft & Nscale | $24 Billion Contract | Deployment of 200,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs Across Four AI Data Centers.
- Facilities in Portugal, Texas, UK, and Norway to leverage Nvidia Blackwell Ultra GPUs, offering 15 petaflops of inference performance.
- Nscale, a recent spin-off from Arkon Energy, has raised $1.7 Billion for data center expansion and plans IPO in late 2026.
Nscale, a European AI infrastructure provider, has signed a groundbreaking $24 billion agreement with Microsoft to build and operate four AI-focused data centers featuring approximately 200,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs. The project, implemented in collaboration with Dell Technologies, will significantly bolster Microsoft’s AI compute capacity as demand for generative AI continues to surge globally.
The facilities will be strategically located across Portugal, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Norway, with specific deployment timelines and capacities:
- The first facility, in Sines, Portugal, will begin construction in early 2024, deploying approximately 12,600 GPUs.
- The largest facility, in Texas, USA, is scheduled to break ground in Q3 2026, with plans to house 104,000 GPUs and an initial power capacity of 240 megawatts, scalable to an impressive 1.2 gigawatts.
- The remaining facilities in the UK and Norway will collectively host 75,000 GPUs.
All four centers will deploy Nvidia’s Blackwell Ultra GPUs, each offering 15 petaflops of inference performance—50% higher than the previous generation. These GPUs will be deployed as part of GB300 NVL72 units, each featuring 72 Blackwell Ultra chips, 36 CPUs, and advanced liquid cooling systems to optimize performance and energy efficiency.
Nscale, a spin-off from Australian crypto mining company Arkon Energy, has quickly positioned itself as a key player in the AI infrastructure space. In the past two months alone, the company has secured over $1.7 billion in funding from strategic backers, including Nvidia, to fuel its expansion plans. CEO Josh Payne revealed that Nscale is targeting an IPO in late 2026, with strong investor interest and an imminent new funding round further solidifying its growth trajectory.
“ This contract between Microsoft and Nscale represents a seismic shift in the AI infrastructure landscape, reflecting the growing need for hyperscale compute to power generative AI applications,” noted a Saasverse analyst. “With Nvidia’s Blackwell Ultra GPUs at the core, these data centers will set new benchmarks for performance, scalability, and energy efficiency. For Microsoft, this is a strategic investment to secure the compute capacity needed to maintain its leadership in AI deployments, particularly as competition intensifies with other hyperscalers like AWS and Google Cloud. ” Saasverse Analyst comments
Saasverse Insights
The Microsoft-Nscale deal highlights an ongoing trend in the AI ecosystem: the relentless demand for advanced compute infrastructure to support increasingly complex AI workloads. Nvidia’s dominance in the GPU market is further underscored by this deal, as its Blackwell Ultra GPUs become the cornerstone of next-generation AI facilities. The adoption of liquid cooling systems also signals a shift toward sustainable, energy-efficient AI data centers, a necessity given the growing environmental scrutiny on hyperscale facilities.
For Nscale, this partnership and its rapid funding momentum position it as a rising star in the AI infrastructure space. With a planned IPO on the horizon, the company could soon join a select group of AI-fueled unicorns reshaping the cloud and data center markets. This deal also reaffirms the AI race among hyperscalers, where securing compute capacity is no longer just a technical requirement but a strategic imperative.
Expect this collaboration to accelerate innovation in AI hardware and data center design, creating a ripple effect across the AI, SaaS, and Cloud ecosystems. As enterprises and startups alike scramble to scale their AI operations, the demand for advanced, energy-efficient compute solutions like those spearheaded by Microsoft and Nscale will only intensify.