Microsoft has pulled out of Nscale's planned data centre at Loughton in Essex, where it was to be the anchor tenant, The Telegraph reported
Nscale, which filed for a US listing last month, expected Microsoft and Anthropic to be its major customers, Reuters reported. The site has struggled to get grid power, Investing.com said.
Why it matters: Microsoft is one of Nscale's two largest customers, Investing.com said, so losing it as anchor tenant at a flagship UK site goes to the heart of the IPO story. It also shows grid power, not chips, deciding where AI capacity can be built.
Microsoft has ended its agreement for Nscale's planned data centre at Loughton in Essex, The Telegraph reported on Sunday 18 October, according to Reuters and Investing.com. Investing.com said Microsoft had been expected to become the site's anchor tenant. The Telegraph's own page would not open for this story, so the event rests on those two reports of it, and neither company has confirmed it.
The Telegraph did not say why Microsoft withdrew, Reuters reported. Investing.com, relaying the same report, said the project has had trouble getting electricity, and that the authorities had reportedly told Nscale that a grid connection might not come until the 2030s. Investing.com said Nscale remains committed to the site and is looking at other sources of power.
The timing matters for Nscale. Reuters reported that the British cloud provider filed for a US initial public offering last month, and that Microsoft and Anthropic were expected to be its major customers. Microsoft and Nscale did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment outside regular business hours.
The report lands at the end of a week in which worries about how AI data centres are financed knocked CoreWeave's shares, which the Switchboard covered on 15 and 17 October. Contract values and GPU counts for the Loughton site appear only in secondary sources and are left out until Nscale's prospectus can be opened.
- Reported Microsoft has ended its agreement for Nscale's planned Loughton data centre, The Telegraph reported, according to Reuters. Reuters, via Global Banking & Finance Review
- Reported Microsoft had been expected to become the anchor tenant at Loughton, Investing.com said, citing The Telegraph. Investing.com
- Reported The site has struggled to secure power, and Nscale was reportedly told a grid connection might not come until the 2030s, Investing.com said, relaying The Telegraph. Investing.com
- Reported Nscale filed for a US IPO last month, and Microsoft and Anthropic were expected to be its major customers, Reuters reported. Reuters, via Global Banking & Finance Review
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