Nvidia could end up holding the keys to a half-gigawatt data center. The chip giant is in talks to guarantee billions of dollars of debt for Nscale, the UK AI cloud company, to build a 460 MW site in West Virginia that Anthropic plans to use. Nothing has been signed, the size of the support hasn’t been disclosed, and the terms could still change.
The information reported on Thursday that the support would help fund power infrastructure and construction. The structure is a residual value guarantee on the building itself.
If Nscale failed to make construction payments, then Nvidia would move in temporarily and assist in finding a new buyer and a tenant for the property.
Bloomberg confirmed that the talks were taking place through a source. Nscale said that it did not want to comment on the situation, while Nvidia chose not to. Nvidia is currently one of Nscale’s investors.
Anthropic entered into a contract worth $45bn in August, where it would be renting space at the campus. According to the Financial Times, it constitutes 40% plus of Nscale’s revenue backlog of $103bn.
Nscale’s IPO filings say it hasn’t yet secured the money to build or equip the first building. Anthropic can walk away if financing isn’t in place by a set deadline. The two companies are also discussing a second $45bn deal for another building.
But Nvidia and others have started to press for more stringent terms following the shift in markets, the WSJ has reported. This has caused Nscale to put back its revised IPO prospectus.
As a result, Nscale has become more likely to consider listing in December rather than November, and some bankers are concerned that it could fall short of the $30-$35 billion valuation goal.
AI cloud companies like CoreWeave, Nebius, and Nscale have been effectively banned from the bonds market in recent weeks.
According to the FT, Nscale suffered losses of $1 billion on revenue of $141 million in the first half of 2026. Construction was ordered to be stopped for three days in September at the Monarch Compute Campus because of flooding in neighbouring houses due to runoff water at Nscale’s property.
There have been ten notices of violation because of ineffective stormwater management. A source close to the company cited unusual weather conditions.
