Nscale, the UK-based AI infrastructure company, is reportedly in talks to raise as much as 3.5 billion USD (about 550 billion yen) ahead of a US stock market listing. Around 2 billion USD (about 310 billion yen) of that is expected to come from NVIDIA, with the rest structured as convertible notes. The company is telling investors its contracted backlog now stands at roughly 103 billion USD (about 16 trillion yen), nearly double the figure reported four weeks earlier, with a single Anthropic agreement accounting for most of the increase.

How the 3.5 Billion Dollars Breaks Down

The raise splits into two parts. The first is up to 1.5 billion USD (about 230 billion yen) in convertible notes, expected to be led by Third Point, the New York hedge fund run by Daniel Loeb. The second is the roughly 2 billion USD from NVIDIA. Goldman Sachs is working on the overall fundraising.

The pricing mechanism on the convertibles is the interesting part. The notes carry a double-digit percentage discount to the IPO price, and that discount narrows as the valuation climbs. The adjustment stops entirely at a 30 billion USD (about 4.7 trillion yen) valuation. It is a compromise that guarantees pre-IPO investors a defined share while protecting the company's upside beyond that ceiling.

Deliberations are reported to be ongoing. Both the size of the raise and the list of investors could still change, and no final decisions have been made.

Why the Backlog Doubled in Four Weeks

Nscale is briefing investors on a contracted backlog of about 103 billion USD. Four weeks ago the figure being reported was roughly 51 billion USD (about 8 trillion yen), so the book has nearly doubled in a short window.

Almost all of the difference comes from one contract. On 26 August, Anthropic agreed to a compute deal with Nscale worth about 45 billion USD (about 7 trillion yen). The arrangement covers roughly 460 megawatts of capacity at a data centre under development in West Virginia, leased over six years and running on NVIDIA's Vera Rubin generation chips. The site is expected to come online at the end of 2027.

That capacity was offered elsewhere first. Microsoft reportedly walked away over the summer while reviewing its data centre portfolio, and Google passed after examining its own capital spending. The deal two of the largest cloud operators declined has become the anchor of Nscale's flotation.

The company has also shown investors figures of roughly 18.1 billion USD (about 2.8 trillion yen) in annual revenue and around 13.6 billion USD (about 2.1 trillion yen) in adjusted earnings, though it describes these as illustrative rather than formal guidance. The gap against actual results is wide: Nscale booked about 33 million USD (about 5.1 billion yen) of revenue across all of 2025, and only passed 100 million USD (about 16 billion yen) in its most recent quarter. That distance between contracted backlog and current revenue is the central question in valuing the listing.

Nordic Cold, Hydropower, and State Export Finance

The European side of the business is funded with European money. The Narvik project in northern Norway drew 790 million USD (about 120 billion yen) in committed debt from ABN AMRO, DNB, Nordea, SEB, and Eksfin, Norway's state export finance agency.

The logic behind Narvik is straightforward: cold air and Nordic hydropower. Data centre operating costs are dominated by cooling and electricity, so a site that cools itself for much of the year and draws cheap power translates directly into a cost advantage. Microsoft is the customer at that site. Norwegian export credit exists precisely to support projects that use Norwegian power and labour.

A Chipmaker Financing Its Own Buyer

The most striking element of the raise is NVIDIA's position in it. Nscale has contracted for roughly 194,000 Vera Rubin generation GPUs, which means NVIDIA would be putting money into one of its own largest customers.

Chipmakers participating in customer financing has become a recurring pattern in AI infrastructure over the past year. It locks in demand, but it also invites the view that part of the revenue is being manufactured by the vendor's own capital. How exchange scrutiny and regulators treat that structure is something to watch.

The board includes Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg, the former UK deputy prime minister. For a company barely two years old, that roster functions as part of the credibility case for the listing.

Europe's Largest AI Infrastructure Firm, Sold in America

The choice of listing venue deserves attention. Nscale was founded only two years ago, yet it now appears in UK sovereign AI plans as one of Europe's largest AI infrastructure operators. A Norwegian state lender helped finance its facilities, its European capacity runs on European power, and it has chosen to sell its shares in New York.

Large technology listings have gravitated to US markets for years. What is notable here is that the same pull applies even to a business sitting close to national industrial policy. The capital arrives from the US, the facilities are built in Europe, and the listing gains are counted on a US exchange. How that shapes European AI policy after the IPO is likely to become its own discussion.

Summary

Nscale is raising up to 3.5 billion USD ahead of a US listing, combining 1.5 billion USD in Third Point-led convertible notes with roughly 2 billion USD from NVIDIA. Its contracted backlog has grown to about 103 billion USD, but most of that comes from a single 45 billion USD Anthropic agreement covering capacity that Microsoft and Google had both declined. Weighed against 2025 revenue of roughly 33 million USD, that gap is what will divide opinion on the listing. Talks are still ongoing, and both the size and the investor group could change.

※1 USD = 156 JPY (as of September 7, 2026)