October 15, 2025
Nscale eyes IPO amid fresh  billion deal with Microsoft
The AI cloud company could go public toward the back end of 2026, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC.

Nscale, the UK-headquartered AI infrastructure provider.

Courtesy: Nscale

AI cloud company Nscale is eyeing an initial public offering, the company confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday as it announced a $14 billion deal with U.S. tech giant Microsoft.

The London-based company, which provides technology infrastructure to help artificial intelligence scale, has “public market ambitions” which could be realized in the “back end of next year,” Chief Executive Josh Payne told the Financial Times on Wednesday.

A company spokesperson declined to comment on where Nscale is considering listing.

On Wednesday Nscale announced an “expanded partnership” with Microsoft, netting the younger company $14 billion, a figure first reported by the FT and verified by CNBC.

Microsoft will purchase around 200,000 Nvidia GB300 graphics processing units from Nscale, inclusive of 75,000 GPUs for projects in Norway and the U.K. that were previously announced, putting the total deal worth at around $23 billion, according to CNBC calculations based on previous announcements.

A company spokesperson declined to comment on the value of the deals.

It comes less than a month after Nscale announced a $433 million funding around, which itself came hot on the heels of a $1.1 billion financing that is considered to be the largest Series B in Europe. Its investors include other technology heavyweights such as Dell, Nvidia and Nokia, as well as asset manager Blue Owl Managed Funds.

Founded in 2018, Nscale’s pace of development speaks to the wider fervor around AI and the race to build out infrastructure that can support it. In both the public and private markets, fears of a bubble have emerged as investors pile in on AI-related stocks and startups.

Nscale, however, shows no signs of slowing down. “We’re always in touch with investors about future opportunities,” a company spokesperson said.