{"text":[[{"start":11.44,"text":"Nscale’s ambitions for a $35bn stock market listing face a fresh test after the UK’s most valuable AI start-up lost out on a potential new deal with Microsoft worth tens of billions of dollars."}],[{"start":24.093,"text":"The US software giant has rejected an option to more than double the size of its existing contract to rent computing power at a data centre site in Texas, according to three people familiar with the matter."}],[{"start":36.382,"text":"The move means that Nscale, which counts former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg and former UK deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg as board members, must find new customers for the site or lose out on billions of dollars in future revenues."}],[{"start":51.2,"text":"Microsoft and Nscale declined to comment."}],[{"start":54.389,"text":"The setback comes as the Nvidia-backed British company, led by former Australian cryptocurrency miner Josh Payne, prepares to launch an IPO this year."}],[{"start":63.499,"text":"But investors have grown wary of the debt-laden construction of AI infrastructure, particularly so-called neoclouds such as CoreWeave and Nebius."}],[{"start":74.32,"text":"Anger over the building of AI data centres across the US has emerged as one of the reasons voters rejected incumbent Republican candidates in the US midterm elections on Tuesday. Incoming Democratic governors, including in Texas, have called for an immediate moratorium on data centre development."}],[{"start":89.68,"text":"Securing new contracts for future business is crucial to the ability of neocloud groups to continue borrowing and finance the building of data centres."}],[{"start":100.25,"text":"Nscale also faces other challenges. Earlier this year, Microsoft pulled out of a $3bn deal to lease computing capacity from its UK data centre in Essex. The start-up’s flagship site in West Virginia — central to its $45bn computing deal with Anthropic — has also been hit with construction delays and local opposition."}],[{"start":119.588,"text":"Nscale, which made a net loss of $1bn on revenue of $141mn in the first half of 2026, is also developing sites in Portugal and Norway. The company says it has “line of sight” to about 10GW of potential power capacity — or the annual electricity consumption of almost every household in Britain."}],[{"start":140.092,"text":"In its IPO prospectus, Nscale stated it has up to 1.2GW of capacity coming online in Ward County, Texas. Around 500MW is connected to a data centre built on land owned by Nscale. The remaining 700MW is due to come from an adjacent site being developed by crypto miner Ionic Digital."}],[{"start":160.542,"text":"Nscale has right of first refusal to find customers for the Ionic site, and therefore benefit from computing deals connected to the venue."}],[{"start":168.518,"text":"In October 2025, Nscale announced a deal to lease to Microsoft around 240MW at the Ionic site, with the US tech giant “holding an option on a second phase of 700MW”."}],[{"start":183.44,"text":"The company clarified to the FT this week that the option was closer to 500MW and related to leasing additional capacity at Nscale’s own site. Microsoft decided not to take up the option, according to people familiar with the matter."}],[{"start":196.473,"text":"Nscale reached a deal with robotics company Figure in September to lease a portion of capacity at its own Ward County data centre and has signed undisclosed deals with other companies at the same location, said people familiar with the matter"}],[{"start":210.67,"text":"Nscale is in discussions with several other potential customers for the site it owns, said a person close to the company."}],[{"start":216.32,"text":"However, power has not yet been secured for the remaining capacity at the Ionic site, for which Microsoft still has right of first refusal, according to Ionic’s SEC filings. The crypto miner reserves the right to “provide the expanded energy capacity to other AI, enterprise, or cloud infrastructure companies”, or use it for its own operations, according to regulatory filings."}],[{"start":238.697,"text":"Microsoft’s decision not to take the extra capacity in Texas will not affect Nscale’s total backlog worth $103bn, according to a person familiar with the matter. The start-up is also in talks with Anthropic over expanding its deal to lease a second 460MW data centre at its biggest site in West Virginia."}],[{"start":264.24,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1793864001_7427.mp3"}