{"text":[[{"start":11.42,"text":"Nscale is nearing a second multibillion-dollar deal with Anthropic, as the UK AI infrastructure start-up seeks to shore up confidence ahead of a planned $35bn initial public offering in New York."}],[{"start":24.08,"text":"The deal would roughly double Anthropic’s commitment to buy computing power from Nscale and cover a second 460-megawatt data centre on Nscale’s Monarch campus in West Virginia, according to people familiar with the matter."}],[{"start":37.04,"text":"The terms of the prospective agreement were expected to resemble the $45bn agreement the two companies signed in August for the first data centre building on the site, the people said. Bloomberg first reported the potential expansion of the relationship."}],[{"start":52.08,"text":"A second deal with Anthropic could help reassure potential investors in Nvidia-backed Nscale — whose board includes former Meta executives Sir Nick Clegg and Sheryl Sandberg — after it emerged this weekend that Microsoft had pulled out of a planned data centre in the UK. OpenAI dropped out of a partnership with Nscale in April."}],[{"start":71.6,"text":"Nscale and other upstart cloud providers, known as neoclouds, have come under increasing pressure in recent weeks as investors fret about the finances and ability to deliver ambitious projects. Some of rival CoreWeave’s debt fell into distressed territory last week."}],[{"start":87.12,"text":"Nscale reported a net loss of $1bn on revenue of $141mn in the first half of 2026. Chinese group ByteDance, which owns TikTok, contributed 73 per cent of Nscale’s $33mn in revenue last year."}],[{"start":102.6,"text":"The additional deal with Anthropic has not been finalised and could fall apart. Due diligence on the second building in West Virginia was still under way, and a deal could be signed within a few weeks, one of the people added. Anthropic also holds a right of first refusal on a third building at the site."}],[{"start":119,"text":"Crucial permits for the site, including state water permits and an air permit for the gas-fired plant that will power the campus, are still pending, West Virginia records show. A person familiar with the matter said the state environmental regulator had issued a letter of intent to approve the air permit."}],[{"start":135.44,"text":"The campus will rely on its own gas-fired power plant rather than the grid, adding to the cost and complexity of the project but avoiding lengthy connection delays. The site dropped by Microsoft in the UK is unlikely to secure its power supply until after 2030."}],[{"start":150.84,"text":"Nscale has said the three buildings in the first phase will require 2 gigawatts of generating capacity to run 1.37GW of computing power. It is targeting completion in the first half of 2028."}],[{"start":163.52,"text":"Nscale also has yet to secure financing for the first Anthropic contract. As of mid-September, when the start-up unveiled its IPO prospectus, Nscale had no binding commitments for any of the funding required to build the site, and Anthropic can walk away if financing is not in place by a set deadline."}],[{"start":179.74,"text":"For Anthropic, the additional computing capacity extends a web of computing deals the AI lab has struck to keep pace with surging demand ahead of its own IPO."}],[{"start":189,"text":"Anthropic’s deal with Nscale is for computing power, rather than to lease the data centre itself. The arrangement means the UK start-up will own and operate the data centre and the chips inside, providing Anthropic capacity that the AI lab pays for as it is delivered."}],[{"start":204.36,"text":"Anthropic and Nscale declined to comment."}],[{"start":210.9,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1792462032_4683.mp3"}