Key Highlights

  • A second 460-megawatt data center at the same West Virginia site could carry a deal value near USD 45 billion.
  • CoreWeave and Nebius shares have fallen 28 Percent and 27 Percent in the past month amid concerns over heavy borrowing.
  • A reported Microsoft exit from an Nscale London project followed its September New York Stock Exchange IPO filing.
  • Anthropic has announced a string of compute deals this year, including with Advanced Micro Devices, SpaceX, Google and Broadcom.

Talks Cover a Second West Virginia Data Center

Anthropic is in talks with U.K. neocloud Nscale for a second multibillion-dollar deal to lease computing capacity at a site in the United States, a person familiar with the matter said. The person, who was not authorized to discuss the talks, said the agreement is for a second 460-megawatt data center at the same West Virginia site as the first deal and could be worth around USD 45 billion. The first deal was reported in August. Anthropic declined to comment, and Nscale has been approached for comment.

Reports on the first agreement describe a six-year lease of 460 megawatts at Nscale's Monarch Compute Campus in West Virginia, a 2,250-acre site Nscale acquired in March 2026 with potential for up to 8 gigawatts of capacity and a first 2-gigawatt phase targeted for the first half of 2028. Those reports also put the first deal's value at about USD 45 billion and said Microsoft has signed for 1.35 gigawatts at the same site.

Neocloud Peers Slide on Borrowing Concerns

Nvidia-backed Nscale is one of several companies that have emerged in recent years to develop the infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence. It builds or leases data centers and sells computing capacity to hyperscalers and AI labs. Rivals CoreWeave and Nebius have seen their shares drop 28 Percent and 27 Percent, respectively, in the past month amid concerns over heavy borrowing.

Nscale has faced its own challenges. A report on Sunday said Microsoft had pulled out of a deal to anchor an Nscale data center just outside London, amid delays connecting to the country's power grid. An Nscale spokesperson said the company remains committed to the project and is exploring alternative power sources for the site. The spokesperson added that the relationship with Microsoft remains strong and long term, and that the London-wide grid issue does not affect its other contracts. The U.K.-based company filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange in September.

Anthropic's Race for Computing Capacity

Anthropic said earlier this year that growing demand for its Claude models and products has put unavoidable strain on its infrastructure. Since then, it has announced a flurry of deals with infrastructure partners to increase its computing capacity, including major agreements with Advanced Micro Devices, SpaceX, Google and Broadcom. A data center industry report said Anthropic has committed to rent more than 10 gigawatts of servers from cloud providers, including a USD 200 billion agreement with Google.