Nscale is a UK-headquartered company that builds large-scale, high-performance infrastructure platforms engineered specifically for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. Founded in 2024, Nscale rapidly emerged as a leading AI hyperscaler focused on delivering scalable, sustainable, and vertically integrated compute solutions—including GPU clusters, networking, storage, managed software, and AI services—for enterprises and governments across Europe, North America, and the Middle East.
Core Services and Platform
Nscale operates its own and colocated data centers, harnessing renewable energy resources (especially in Norway) to ensure cost-effectiveness and sustainability for AI processing tasks. Their platform offers:
- Access to thousands of high-performance AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, optimized for demanding AI and HPC (high-performance computing) workloads.
- A full-stack AI cloud platform with built-in and third-party AI/ML tools, infrastructure as code, and a marketplace for efficient model development, fine-tuning, and scalable deployment.
- Serverless AI services, allowing customers to run AI inference workloads without managing infrastructure—scaling automatically to balance speed, cost, and availability.
- Support for popular orchestration frameworks, notably Slurm and Kubernetes, for robust scheduling and management of containerized AI jobs.
Major Partnerships and Projects
Nscale is driving several large-scale collaborations:
- With Microsoft, NVIDIA, and OpenAI, Nscale is building the UK’s largest AI supercomputer on its Loughton AI Campus—part of the Stargate UK initiative focused on supporting sovereign and enterprise AI deployments.
- The Stargate Norway partnership with Aker ASA and OpenAI aims to deliver over 100,000 NVIDIA GPUs by the end of 2026, establishing a major hyperscale AI cluster in Europe’s north.
- Ongoing collaboration with Dell, Nokia, and other global leaders to develop resilient, secure, and energy-efficient AI infrastructure for mission-critical and regulated workloads.
Funding and Growth
- Nscale recently raised a record-breaking $1.1 billion Series B round—Europe’s largest—led by Aker ASA with support from major investors including Dell, NVIDIA, Fidelity, and Blue Owl.
- This funding will accelerate Nscale’s build-out of “AI factory” data centers and enable rapid global expansion to meet the surging enterprise demand for AI computing resources.
- The company reported exponential growth, scaling its power pipeline from 300MW to over 1.3GW across planned and greenfield sites in just over a year since its 2024 founding.
Leadership and Background
Nscale is led by a team with a track record in large-scale data centers, supercomputing, and regulated infrastructure projects. The company was spun out from Arkon Energy, an organization previously focused on renewable-powered data centers for cryptocurrency mining.
Position in the Market
Nscale positions itself as the first European-founded AI-native hyperscaler, engineered to meet increasing regulatory, sustainability, and performance requirements, with the agility to serve both public and private sector needs. Its rapid rise is seen as key to the UK and Europe’s ambitions to become global AI leaders rather than depend solely on US and Asian providers.
Where are Nscale’s data centers located
Nscale’s primary data centers are located in northern Norway (Glomfjord) and Loughton, Essex in the United Kingdom, with major expansion plans in both regions as well as future sites in the United States and across Europe.
Glomfjord, Norway
- Nscale operates a high-capacity, energy-efficient AI data center in the Glomfjord Industrial Park in northern Norway, currently running on 30MW of hydroelectric power with expansion to 60MW expected by Q2 2025.
- The site uses 100% renewable energy, advanced liquid cooling for next-generation GPUs, and offers low-latency connectivity across Europe.
- There are broader plans under the Stargate Norway initiative, in partnership with OpenAI and Aker, to deliver up to 230MW of capacity (with potential expansion by an additional 290MW) for European AI workloads.
Loughton, Essex, United Kingdom
- Nscale’s first UK data center is located in Loughton, Essex, scheduled to come online in Q4 2026, with an initial 50MW of capacity expandable to up to 90MW.
- Designed to host 45,000 NVIDIA GB200 GPUs, it will support sovereign AI workloads and private enterprise cloud AI solutions, powered by clean energy and advanced cooling.
Additional Plans
- Nscale maintains a development pipeline totaling over 1.3GW, including plans for new greenfield sites in the United States and modular data centers across Europe to serve both public and private sector AI needs.
- Nscale also partners globally, including with Singtel in Asia, to extend compute resources and support new deployments.
Nscale’s data centers combine sustainability, scale, and regulatory compliance, positioning them to meet the rapid growth and increasingly complex requirements of global AI workloads.
Where are Nscale’s data centers located
Here is a summary of Nscale’s current and planned data center sites, mapped by region and including major facilities and project timelines:
- The Glomfjord site in Norway is operational and forms the backbone of Nscale’s renewable-powered AI capacity for Europe.
- The Essex, UK facility is set to become the largest of its kind in the country, driving both sovereign and private sector AI workloads when online.
- Finland is a new expansion target, taking advantage of Nordic energy availability and sustainability.
These locations highlight Nscale’s strategy to leverage renewable energy and robust site infrastructure, including additional planned projects in the US and across Europe.