Anthropic and Nscale in Talks Over a Second $45 Billion Compute Deal, Report Says

The price of staying competitive in artificial intelligence keeps climbing. Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI models, is in talks to buy roughly another $45 billion worth of computing power from infrastructure provider Nscale, according to Bloomberg reporting summarised by Reuters on October 19 — just weeks after the two companies announced a first deal of almost exactly the same size.

The proposed agreement would fund a second building at Nscale’s Monarch data center campus in West Virginia, delivering about 460 megawatts of computing capacity built on Nvidia’s advanced Vera Rubin AI chips. Anthropic is also reported to hold a right of first refusal on a third building at the campus, giving it a path to expand further still.

A relationship measured in tens of billions

The numbers underline how central Nscale has become to Anthropic’s plans. The pair’s August agreement was valued at up to about $44.6 billion, and Nscale’s IPO filing shows signed customer contracts totalling more than $103 billion, with Anthropic and Microsoft together accounting for roughly 85% of that book. The Microsoft relationship, notably, has already shown strain: Microsoft recently walked away from anchoring a different Nscale site after grid connection delays pushed its expected power supply date into the 2030s.

Both sides of the reported deal have reasons to keep expectations measured. Reuters said it could not independently verify the talks, neither company commented, and people familiar with the negotiations cautioned that details could still change. The August contract itself carries conditions — Nscale has not yet locked in binding financing for all the capacity, and Anthropic can walk away if financing deadlines are missed.

Investor nerves beneath the boom

The talks come amid growing investor scrutiny of the debt-fuelled AI infrastructure race. Shares in rival CoreWeave slumped last week on worries about its $50 billion debt load, contributing to a wider sell-off in AI stocks, and Bloomberg reported that some investors have urged Anthropic to lower its IPO valuation target. Nscale is also pursuing a listing, with reported pushback against its proposed $30 billion valuation. Even so, with demand for AI compute still outrunning supply, neither company appears ready to slow down.

Source: TechCrunch