Anthropic is seeking an additional $45 billion in funding. The deal could support its partner Nvidia's IPO

Anthropic, the world's most valuable startup, is in talks with cloud AI infrastructure provider Nscale to lease computing power as part of a deal worth approximately $45 billion, according to sources cited by Bloomberg.

An Nvidia-backed data center operator is expecting to sign a second major deal with Claude’s developer—for capacity at another facility on the Monarch campus in West Virginia, according to sources familiar with the matter. According to Nscale documents filed with regulators in preparation for its IPO, Anthropic already has agreements with the company to use infrastructure worth up to $44.6 billion, Bloomberg reports.

The second phase of the Monarch complex will provide 460 MW of computing power and will be equipped with cutting-edge Nvidia Vera Rubin AI chips, sources told Bloomberg. AI developer Anthropic has secured the right of first refusal to lease the campus’s anticipated third building, the agency reports.

According to his information, the deal could be finalized in the coming days. However, negotiations are still ongoing, and the terms may change. Representatives from Anthropic and Nscale declined to comment to Bloomberg.

In August, Anthropic signed a similar deal with Nscale for the first phase of the campus. The developer of Claude leased computing power worth approximately $45 billion, with Microsoft and Google competing for the contract.

Anthropic is becoming one of Nscale's largest customers, according to Bloomberg. Once construction is complete, the total power capacity of the Monarch campus in West Virginia could exceed 8 GW, according to documents filed in connection with Nscale's IPO.

Anthropic was valued at $965 billion in May and may hold a record-breaking IPO in the coming months. At the same time, the company continues to seek additional computing capacity needed for further growth, the agency notes. The AI giant has also signed data center lease agreements with Fluidstack for $50 billion, with infrastructure startup Volta Infrastructure for $10 billion, and with Elon Musk’s SpaceX for $45 billion, Bloomberg notes.

At the same time, the market is growing increasingly wary of the massive amounts of debt being raised to finance the construction of AI data centers. These concerns have already spread to a wide range of assets—from chipmakers’ stocks to the debt securities of cloud companies.

Another multibillion-dollar deal to provide computing power could strengthen Nscale’s position ahead of its own initial public offering, in which the company expects to be valued at approximately $30 billion. However, some investors have cast doubt on this, insisting on a valuation of $16–19 billion, according to Bloomberg. According to the agency’s sources, one of the reasons is the collapse of the IPO plans for the Australian company Firmus, which builds data centers for AI.

Another piece of bad news for Nscale was the cancellation of its deal with Microsoft. The hyperscaler was supposed to lease a data center in the United Kingdom, but the project faced delays due to power supply constraints.

Nscale publicly filed documents for a U.S. stock offering in September, but the formal marketing of the IPO to investors has not yet begun, even though the mandatory 15-day waiting period has already expired, according to Bloomberg. The company is currently addressing comments from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and intends to begin marketing the offering once those issues have been resolved, sources told the agency.

Last month, Nscale raised $3.36 billion in a funding round. The deal was led by Daniel Loeb's Third Point fund, with Nvidia and Apollo Global Management among the other participants.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor