Insiders told CNBC that Anthropic is in negotiations with a British company neocloud and Nscale regarding a second deal worth several billion dollars, with plans to lease computing power capacity at a location in the United States.
The individual stated that this agreement will cover the second 460-megawatt data center within the same park in West Virginia as the first transaction. As they do not have the authority to discuss the negotiations publicly, this person requested to remain anonymous. The individual also mentioned that the value of this deal could be approximately $45 billion.
CNBC reported the first transaction in August.
Bloomberg was the first to report that Anthropic and Nscale are in negotiations regarding a second transaction. Anthropic declined to comment. Nscale has been contacted for comment.
AI Infrastructure Facing Headwinds
Nscale, supported by NVIDIA, is one of the many companies that have emerged in recent years with the aim of developing the infrastructure necessary to support artificial intelligence. The company builds or leases data centers and sells computing power capacity to hyperscale cloud service providers and AI laboratories.
The stock prices of competitors CoreWeave and Nebius have fallen by 28% and 27% respectively over the past month, due to market concerns about their large debt levels.
Nscale itself also faces challenges. On Sunday, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported that due to delays in connecting to the UK power grid, Microsoft has withdrawn from a transaction that involved using a data center on the outskirts of London as a anchor for customers of Nscale.
Nscale spokesperson told CNBC that the company is still "dedicated" to this project and is "exploring alternative sources of power for that location."
The spokesperson added, "Our relationship with Microsoft remains strong and long-term, and this unfortunate power grid issue in the London area will not affect our other contracts."
The company, headquartered in the UK, submitted an application to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in September.
Anthropic's computing power expansion
Earlier this year, Anthropic stated that the growth in demand for Claude AI models and products had placed “inevitable pressure” on its infrastructure.
Thereafter, the company announced a series of transactions with multiple infrastructure partners to increase its computing power capacity, including important agreements reached with Advanced Micro Devices, Elon Musk's SpaceX, Google, and Broadcom.
