AI Tech / news
Nscale's Planned IPO Puts Its Two-Customer Revenue Model in the Spotlight
The British AI data center developer has built a contract backlog of more than $103 billion, but roughly 85% of it rests on deals with Microsoft and Anthropic.
Nscale, a British neocloud that provides AI compute capacity, disclosed in its IPO filing that it has accumulated more than $103 billion worth of contracts since being spun out of Australian cryptocurrency mining company Arkon Energy two years ago.
The bulk of that backlog sits with just two customers. About 85% of the total comes from an agreement to supply Microsoft with $43.8 billion worth of compute through 2033, alongside a separate supply deal valued at $44.6 billion with AI lab Anthropic.
The Anthropic contract carries conditions. It depends on Nscale securing financing, and the AI lab retains the right to cancel or walk away from the agreement if the company fails to meet milestones that the filing describes as "stringent."
That level of customer concentration is not unique in the sector. A paper by credit hedge fund Sona Asset Management, reported by the Financial Times, found that many AI infrastructure providers lean heavily on a small number of buyers. Competitor CoreWeave draws 67% of its revenue from Microsoft, while data center builder Applied Digital generates 67% from Oracle and 30% from CoreWeave.
Sona noted that such interconnectedness is not necessarily a negative, but said a single setback or strategic shift by one major player can quickly spread across the wider industry.