Nscale
Category: AI Infrastructure
A full-stack AI infrastructure platform that delivers vertically integrated compute, networking, storage, managed software, and AI services through company-owned sustainable data centers, purpose-built for training, fine-tuning, and deploying large-scale AI models. Nscale was founded in 2024. The company is led by Josh Payne. Based in London, United Kingdom. Team size: 200+. Total funding raised: $3.722B. Latest round: Series C ($2.0B, Mar 2026). Key investors include ["Aker ASA (Norwegian industrial group)","8090 Industries","NVIDIA","Microsoft","Dell Technologies","Nokia","Sandton Capital Partners","Blue Owl","Point72","Jane Street","Citadel","Fidelity Management & Research Company","G Squared"].
- Founded
- 2024
- Headquarters
- London, United Kingdom
- Team size
- 200+
- Total funding
- $3.722B
Value proposition
Provides complete vertically integrated AI infrastructure from data center to orchestration layer, enabling customers to deploy production-ready AI workloads faster with sustainable, sovereign, and cost-effective GPU compute while eliminating cluster management overhead through managed services
Products and solutions
["AI Services (Serverless inference endpoints, fine-tuning workflows, Prompt Workbench)","Platform Services (Nscale Kubernetes Service, Slurm clusters, bare metal nodes, virtual machines)","Infrastructure Services (GPU-optimized storage, RDMA/InfiniBand/NVLink networking)","Fleet Operations (Control Center, Observability, Radar API)","Nscale SLONK (High-performance compute cluster management platform)","Modular, sovereign, sustainably-powered data centers"]
Unique value
Only AI hyperscaler offering fully vertically integrated infrastructure from renewable-powered data centers to orchestration software; operates 100% renewable energy facilities using Arctic hydro, geothermal, and seawater cooling; achieved $14.6B valuation within 2 years of founding (May 2024); can provision Kubernetes environments in under 2 minutes; contracts for approximately 200,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs
Target customer
Enterprise companies, AI-native startups, governments, telecommunications providers, financial services firms, healthcare & life sciences organizations requiring sovereign, scalable AI infrastructure for large-scale model training and inference
Industries served
["Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning","Cloud Computing & Infrastructure","Telecommunications","Financial Services","Healthcare & Life Sciences","High-Performance Computing (HPC)","Government & Public Sector"]
Technology advantage
Combines purpose-built modular data centers with latest NVIDIA GPU technology (H100, H200, GB200, GB300), advanced cooling systems (liquid cooling, rear-door heat exchangers), proprietary fleet management software, and strategic partnerships to deliver cost-effective, scalable AI compute. Vertically integrated stack allows optimization at every layer for maximum performance and efficiency while ensuring data sovereignty and regulatory compliance.
How they differentiate
Only AI hyperscaler offering fully vertically integrated infrastructure from renewable-powered data centers to orchestration software; operates 100% renewable energy facilities using Arctic hydro, geothermal, and seawater cooling; strong emphasis on data sovereignty and regulatory compliance; European market leadership with strategic sovereign AI infrastructure projects (Stargate Norway, Stargate UK)
Main competitors
["CoreWeave","Lambda Labs","Crusoe"]
Key partnerships
["NVIDIA (strategic investor and GPU supplier, DGX Cloud partnership, Stargate projects)","Microsoft ($14B infrastructure contract for 200,000 GPUs across Europe and US)","OpenAI (Stargate Norway and Stargate UK sovereign AI infrastructure projects)","Dell Technologies (hardware partnership for GPU deployments)","AMD (first AI GPU cloud provider using Instinct MI300X accelerators)","Aker ASA (lead investor, Stargate Norway partnership)","Nokia (strategic investor)","8090 Industries (co-lead investor Series C)"]
Notable customers
["Microsoft ($14B+ infrastructure contract for 200,000 GPUs across Europe and US)","OpenAI (Stargate Norway and Stargate UK sovereign AI infrastructure projects)","Enterprise AI companies","Government and public sector organizations"]
Major milestones
["Raised $155M Series A led by Sandton Capital Partners in Dec 2024","Raised $1.1B Series B (largest in European history) led by Aker ASA in Sep 2025","Raised $433M Pre-Series C SAFE with NVIDIA, Dell, Nokia participation in Oct 2025","Raised $2B Series C at $14.6B valuation led by Aker ASA and 8090 Industries in Mar 2026","Secured Stargate Norway joint venture with Aker ASA and OpenAI for 100,000 NVIDIA GPUs","Partnered with Microsoft to build UK's largest AI supercomputer","Contracted approximately 200,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs with Microsoft across Europe and US","Appointed high-profile board members including Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg (Mar 2026)"]
Growth metrics
Reached $14.6B valuation within 2 years of founding (May 2024 - March 2026); contracted approximately 200,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs; 200+ employees; operational data centers across Europe and expanding to North America
Market positioning
Europe's most valuable AI infrastructure startup at $14.6B valuation; vertically integrated AI hyperscaler competing with US-based neocloud providers and traditional hyperscalers; positioned as sovereign AI infrastructure provider for European governments and enterprises
Geographic focus
Europe (UK, Norway) and North America (USA); expanding across Nordic region with renewable-powered facilities; strategic data centers in Glomfjord and Kvandal, Norway; Loughton, UK; and Texas, USA
Patents and IP
No registered patents publicly disclosed as of March 2026
About Josh Payne
Founder and CEO of Nscale (2024-present). Previously Founder & Executive Chairman of Arkon Energy (2021-2023), a Bitcoin mining and HPC infrastructure company. Founder of Artemis (2018-2021), an energy trading and infrastructure firm. Portfolio Manager at Element Capital (2015-2018) in quantitative finance. Served as a commissioned officer in the British Army (2010-2015). Deep expertise in energy infrastructure, data centers, hardware supply chains, and supercomputing infrastructure, with a track record of building high-growth businesses across multiple sectors.
Official website: https://www.nscale.com/