Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Nvidia-backed AI cloud computing provider Nscale has raised $2bn in one of the largest deals of its kind for a European tech start-up, as former Meta executives Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg join its board.
The deal for UK-headquartered Nscale — led by Aker ASA, the Norwegian energy and industrial group that is working with the start-up to build a data centre for customers including OpenAI in Norway, and 8090 Industries, a New York-based venture firm — values the two-year-old company at $14.6bn. The valuation includes the new capital raised.
The fundraising is the latest sign of sustained investor enthusiasm for AI infrastructure projects, despite turbulence on Wall Street due to concern about the impact of the technology and conflict in the Middle East that threatens to disrupt the energy and semiconductor supply chains that data centres rely on.
Nscale was spun out of the Australian provider of bitcoin mining facilities Arkon Energy in 2024.
Monday’s deal follows a $1.1bn financing in September and the following month it won a contract worth up to $14bn with Microsoft to build a large AI data centre in Texas.
Nscale also announced on Monday that former Meta chief operating officer Sandberg would join its board, alongside former UK deputy prime minister Clegg, who was Meta’s president of global affairs from 2018 before stepping down last year.