Anthropic has signed a 6-year AI compute lease worth $45 billion with Nscale, a British infrastructure company founded in 2024, running on Nvidia’s Vera Rubin chips (a 6-chip integrated system widely considered the pinnacle of current design). Nscale also provides compute to Microsoft and operates an “AI factory” data center in West Virginia.
This marks Anthropic’s fifth major compute procurement in 8 months:
- In April: expanded partnerships with Amazon (+5 GW) and Google/Broadcom
- In May: contract with SpaceX (~$1.25 billion/month from 2 data centers)
- In July: $5 billion with AMD
- Last month: $10 billion with Volta (Norway, 6 years)
- Today: $45 billion with Nscale (6 years, Vera Rubin chips)
The total compute capital Anthropic has secured over the past 8 months has surpassed $65 billion. This figure represents roughly ~10-15% of Anthropic’s estimated valuation (assuming ~$500-600 billion)—clear proof of the thesis that infrastructure, rather than model architecture alone, determines winners and losers.
The Vera Rubin chip is Nvidia’s next-generation architecture: 6 distinct chips working in coordination, lauded as “state-of-the-art.” The compute power is expected to come online in late 2027. Founded only in 2024, Nscale has rapidly emerged as a key player in the infrastructure race.
This compute race is not Anthropic’s alone. OpenAI, Google, and Meta are all pursuing similar strategies: vast reserves of GPUs, TPUs, and custom silicon form the true barrier to entry, not model architecture. For Anthropic, this series of deals also reflects a supplier diversification strategy: avoiding sole reliance on Amazon or Google by branching out to Nscale, Volta, SpaceX, and AMD.
Nvidia remains the biggest winner: every contract ultimately flows back to its silicon (H100, B200, and now Vera Rubin). Nvidia’s data center revenue in fiscal Q2 2027 reached $89 billion, up 117% from the previous year.