The Anthropic agreement carries an additional condition. According to the filing, Nscale must secure financing needed to build the required capacity, and Anthropic can terminate or cancel the deal if the company fails to meet milestones described as “stringent.”
That makes financing a central part of Nscale’s expansion plans. Earlier this month, Nvidia agreed to provide $1 billion in convertible debt as part of a broader $3.1 billion financing package.
Nscale was previously valued at $14.6 billion in a $2 billion Series C led by Aker ASA and 8090 Industries. A public-market valuation of about $35 billion would therefore represent a sharp increase from its most recent private funding round.
The company is also growing quickly from a relatively small revenue base. Revenue for the six months ended June 30 reached $140.6 million, compared with $10.4 million in the same period a year earlier. At the same time, its net loss widened to $1.02 billion from $369 million.
That combination — rapid revenue growth, large losses and an unusually concentrated contract book — is likely to be central to how investors assess the IPO.
Customer concentration is already common across parts of the AI infrastructure market. CoreWeave receives 67% of its revenue from Microsoft, while Applied Digital generates 67% from Oracle and another 30% from CoreWeave.
Sona Asset Management has pointed to the interconnected nature of these relationships while cautioning that dependence on a small group of customers can magnify the effects of any change in strategy.
“Sona noted that such interconnectedness is not necessarily a bad thing, it pointed out that a single setback or strategic shift by a major player can easily affect the entire industry”
For Nscale, the concentration is especially visible because Microsoft and Anthropic account for the vast majority of its contracted business. Any change in either relationship could materially alter the value of the company’s backlog.
The company is entering an increasingly crowded field. Crusoe recently raised $3.9 billion at a $30.9 billion valuation, while Nebius and Lambda are also expanding their GPU infrastructure. CoreWeave is already publicly traded.
Nscale operates data centers in Norway, Portugal, Texas and West Virginia. Its board includes former Meta executives Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg, as well as former OpenAI executive Fidji Simo.
The IPO gives public investors a clearer look at the economics behind Nscale’s expansion. The company has secured unusually large commitments from major AI customers, but converting those contracts into revenue will require continued financing and substantial infrastructure buildout.
That makes the Anthropic agreement particularly important. The $44.6 billion contract strengthens Nscale’s headline backlog, but its value depends on the company meeting the financing and construction milestones attached to it.
Nscale’s public-market debut will therefore hinge on more than the size of its contract book. Investors will also have to decide how much weight to place on customer concentration, widening losses and the conditions attached to one of its largest agreements as the company attempts to scale its AI computing business.
This analysis is based on reporting from kucoin.
Image courtesy of dealroom.co.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
