Nscale defined: All the pieces you must know
The UK authorities has set itself an formidable goal of turning into a man-made intelligence (AI) superpower, and this can be a place it’s searching for to safe by championing the builders of homegrown AI instruments and applied sciences.
As the federal government pithily acknowledged in its January 2025 AI alternatives motion plan doc: “We should be an AI maker, not simply an AI taker: we’d like corporations on the frontier that will probably be our UK nationwide champions.”
One firm the federal government definitely appears to be championing to fill that position is AI infrastructure supplier Nscale, which has beforehand described itself because the UK’s “solely full stack sovereign AI infrastructure supplier”.
Because the begin of 2025, the corporate has acquired passing mentions in varied ministerial speeches, constructing as much as its CEO, Josh Payne, being quoted in press releases issued by the Division for Science, Innovation and Expertise (DSIT) concerning the authorities’s formidable AI agenda.
On 16 September 2025, the corporate was name-checked as “British agency Nscale” in two authorities press releases – one detailing its work with ChatGPT creator OpenAI to create sovereign AI compute capability, and one other about its involvement in Microsoft’s bid to create the UK’s largest AI supercomputer in Loughton, Essex.
For a corporation that was, in accordance with Corporations Home, solely included in Might 2024, the calibre of its know-how collaborators and the excessive regard the federal government seems to carry it in is curious to say the least.
Particularly the latter’s trumpeting of the corporate as a British tech success story, given – as confirmed by Corporations Home – the vast majority of its administrators are based mostly within the US, and the majority of its constructed datacentre infrastructure is in Norway.
So, the place did Nscale come from? And why is the federal government so certain its know-how holds the important thing to it turning into an AI maker, moderately than an AI taker?
What’s the background to Nscale?
Nscale was included within the UK on 29 Might 2024, with Corporations Home confirming the corporate has seven administrators, with 4 of them residing within the US, two within the UK and one in Australia.
Among the many UK administrators is the corporate’s chief govt Payne, who can also be the one director listed as being an individual of “vital management”.
Nscale is known to have been spun out of an organization based by Payne and one other particular person – Nathan Townsend, additionally a director at Nscale – known as Arkon Vitality, which specialises within the provision of cryptocurrency mining and renewably powered datacentre infrastructure from websites in Ohio, the US and Norway.
In December 2023, Payne posted on LinkedIn that Arkon Vitality had secured $110m in funding, which he declared to be the “largest non-public funding spherical for a bitcoin mining platform” that 12 months.
The publish acknowledged that the funding will probably be used to triple the corporate’s US-based datacentre capability to 300MW, and pave the best way for it to launch its AI Cloud Service platform from its current datacentre in Norway.
“It has been a tremendous 12 months for Arkon Vitality, having began the 12 months with an working capability of 30MW and now ending the 12 months with a portfolio of 330MW in complete that’s funded, [and] anticipated to be totally operational by Q3 2024,” wrote Payne.
A number of months later, in February 2024, there was an abortive try began to get Arkon Vitality listed on the Euronext Amsterdam Inventory Trade by way of a reverse merger with a shell firm often called BM3EAC.
Nevertheless, 9 months later, in November 2024, it was confirmed that each corporations had terminated discussions on the matter, and – through the intervening interval – Nscale was spun out of Arkon.
Townsend continues to be listed as working for Arkon Vitality (and Nscale) on his LinkedIn profile, however the Arkon Vitality web site seems to have disappeared from the web altogether.
What does Nscale truly do?
Nscale markets itself as an AI hyperscaler that gives the datacentres, software program and purposes that enterprises and governments must ship on their very own AI ambitions.
The corporate has its flagship Glomfjord datacentre in Norway, which is reportedly powered by hydroelectricity, and claims to have a “world pipeline of greenfield datacentres” underneath growth.
Does Nscale have any UK datacentres?
The corporate introduced in January 2025 that it deliberate to take a position $2.5bn within the UK datacentre business over the subsequent three years, having bought its first UK web site in Loughton.
Nscale stated the positioning is provided with 50MW of AI and high-performance compute capability, which may very well be scaled as much as 90MW, and ought to be reside by late 2026. The corporate stated it additionally plans to start out constructing a number of modular datacentres within the UK, through the second half of 2025.
What about its partnerships and acquisitions?
Since its inception, the corporate has hit the acquisition path to construct out the capabilities of its AI infrastructure proposition, having snapped up Kontena, which specialises within the provision of high-density, modular generative AI datacentres, in July 2024.
It has additionally struck a couple of high-profile partnerships, together with with OpenAI. It’s collaborating with the corporate on its Stargate Norway initiative, which can see it assist ship 290MW of renewably powered compute capability within the nation, as introduced in August 2025.
The corporate can also be working with OpenAI and Nvidia within the UK on Stargate UK, as a part of a government-backed push to construct out the sovereign compute capability for the only objective of internet hosting AI fashions.
As beforehand talked about, the corporate can also be concerned in Microsoft’s bid to create the UK’s largest AI supercomputer in Loughton.
What has the UK authorities stated about Nscale?
Fairly a bit, because it goes. The corporate has been name-checked in ministerial speeches and DSIT press releases a good quantity for the reason that authorities printed its AI alternatives motion plan doc on 13 January 2025.
On that day, Nscale was described in a authorities press launch as “one of many UK’s main AI corporations”, which is a daring declare for a corporation that – at that time – had solely been in operation round eight months.
Precisely what info this descriptor was based mostly on is unclear, given the corporate was – as confirmed by Corporations Home – nonetheless eight months shy of getting to submit its first set of accounts at that time, which might give a clearer thought of its efficiency.
In one other DSIT press launch, launched two days after the AI alternatives motion plan report materialised in January 2025, Nscale is described by the federal government as “considered one of our main home-grown success tales”.
Once more, the “home-grown” descriptor is one which warrants nearer examination, given that almost all of its administrators are positioned abroad, the majority of its infrastructure seems to be positioned in Norway, and the corporate it span out from was based in Australia.
Whereas Nscale was included within the UK in Might 2024, a profile on the corporate printed round this time on abroad tech web site IT Temporary Australia additionally describes the corporate as being Norwegian.
The corporate does have a headquarters within the UK, and confirmed on 2 September 2025 that it’s opening an workplace in Mayfair, London.
How is Nscale being funded?
In December 2024, Nscale introduced it had raised $155m on the again of an “oversubscribed” collection A funding spherical, which it claimed would enable it to speed up the corporate’s growth throughout Europe and North America.
Some 12 months earlier than this, in December 2023, the corporate is known to have additionally raised $30m in seed funding.
“Since launching from stealth in Might 2024, Nscale has skilled insatiable demand for AI infrastructure, rapidly rising its pipeline of greenfield datacentres throughout Europe and North America from 300MW to 1.3GW, with 120MW deliberate for 2025 growth,” stated the corporate, within the accompanying press launch.
“The hyperscaler [Nscale] is now uniquely positioned to capitalise in the marketplace for large-scale AI infrastructure, and might ship bespoke GPU [graphics processing unit] clusters at any scale for governments, AI scaleups and world enterprises.”
