Multiple outlets, citing insider sources, reported on Monday that Anthropic has entered into a six-year cloud compute leasing agreement with UK-based compute provider Nscale, valued at approximately $45 billion in total. The capacity will be sourced from Nscale's flagship campus in Mason County, West Virginia, with a scale of roughly 460 megawatts, and is slated to utilize Nvidia Vera Rubin chips, with power expected to come online gradually starting in late 2027. Anthropic is leasing the rack space, while the campus, hardware, and power plants remain under Nscale's ownership. Neither party has issued a press release.

Six-year, $45 billion deal for approximately 460 megawatts of power

The $45 billion figure covers six years of usage rights, which averages out to roughly $7.5 billion annually. Existing reports have not clarified whether payments are made in equal installments or disclosed the upfront payment ratio. The 460 megawatts represents the power capacity associated with these servers, a metric used to gauge the electricity footprint of the compute facility; specific chip counts were not provided. Nscale, founded in 2024, has previously engaged with clients like Microsoft regarding power supply. Earlier this year, Anthropic indicated that its Claude-related products have pushed its infrastructure to a point of "unavoidable tension," affecting stability and performance during peak hours. This new lease, with a rollout window starting in late 2027, supplements capacity for a later phase.

Campus and chips: Phase one at 1.35 gigawatts, Vera Rubin still pre-delivery

Insiders noted that Nscale will deploy Nvidia's Vera Rubin system, which integrates six different chips into a single machine working collaboratively, though large-scale supply has yet to commence. The campus, named Monarch Compute Campus, is situated in Mason County and spans approximately 2,250 acres. Nscale has previously disclosed a phase-one AI compute capacity of 1.35 gigawatts, with long-term power space exceeding 8 gigawatts. Based on that phase-one figure, this ~460 megawatt lease represents roughly one-third of the capacity. The campus plans to use on-site microgrid power, targeting approximately 2 gigawatts of natural gas generation capacity by early 2028, with a closed-loop cooling system that does not draw on municipal drinking water. Industry reports place the total construction cost for the campus and associated power infrastructure at around $71 billion. Notably, Nscale had earlier announced a letter of intent to supply Microsoft with up to 1.35 gigawatts, also tied to Vera Rubin chips and with deliveries scheduled in batches starting in late 2027. How this Microsoft letter of intent coexists with the Anthropic contract has not been clarified in current reports.

Multiple compute acquisitions secured consecutively this year

This Nscale lease marks another major addition to Anthropic's compute procurement pipeline this year and is among its largest rental agreements to date. In April, Anthropic expanded its partnership with Amazon, adding roughly 5 gigawatts of compute capacity, while also strengthening existing arrangements with Google and Broadcom. In May, the company leased data center capacity linked to SpaceX, reported at approximately $1.25 billion per month, with usage extending to May 2029. In July, AMD announced plans to supply Anthropic with AI servers worth tens of billions of dollars, with an option to invest up to $5 billion in the company. Earlier in August, Anthropic signed a roughly $10 billion, six-year power agreement with Volta, a cloud provider founded in January of this year, for capacity in Norway.

Both companies are advancing toward public listings

Anthropic confidentially filed registration documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June and has begun engaging with potential investors. Public reports indicate that Nscale is also preparing for a U.S. listing, with a potential raise of up to $3 billion, and some reports suggest a timeline as early as September. Whether either company will include this lease in its prospectus has not been officially confirmed.