Anthropic nears second $45B compute deal with Nscale
What's the deal? Anthropic and AI infrastructure provider Nscale are in talks for a second compute deal worth about $45 billion, Bloomberg first reported. The agreement would roughly double Anthropic's commitment to buy computing power from Nscale, covering a second 460-megawatt building at Nscale's Monarch campus in West Virginia.
Why now? The two signed a $45 billion deal in August for the first building on the same site. Both companies are also pursuing IPOs: Anthropic is still expected to go public this year, while Nscale is targeting a New York listing.
What's the endgame? For Anthropic, the capacity extends a web of compute deals it has struck to keep pace with demand for Claude. The arrangement has Nscale own and operate the data centre and the Nvidia chips inside, with Anthropic paying for capacity as it is delivered.
What could go wrong? The deal is not finalised and could fall apart, with due diligence still under way. Key permits for the site — including water and air permits for the gas-fired plant powering the campus — remain pending, and Nscale has yet to secure financing for the first contract. Anthropic can walk away if funding is not in place by a set deadline.
The backdrop: A second commitment could reassure investors after Microsoft pulled out of a UK data centre deal with Nscale over power-connection delays, and after OpenAI exited a partnership in April. Nscale reported a net loss of $1 billion on revenue of $141 million in the first half of 2026.
The signal: The scale of spending has unsettled some investors worried that AI companies are paying too much for too little profit. Last week, rival CoreWeave's shares slumped over concerns about its $50 billion debt load, fuelling a selloff in AI stocks — a reminder of how debt-driven infrastructure expansion is testing the market's patience.
Read more: TechCrunch, Financial Times
Image credit: cbowns
