Nscale loses Microsoft UK AI data center deal to power delays

Microsoft has pulled out of a planned U.K. AI data center to be run by Nscale, the Nvidia-backed company spun out of bitcoin mining, after the local grid operator said sufficient power may not be available until the early-to-mid 2030s. The site in Loughton, Essex was meant to house 23,040 Nvidia chips and supply 50 megawatts of computing to Microsoft's Azure cloud by early 2027, per the Guardian and the Financial Times.

• Nscale, which grew out of bitcoin miner Arkon Energy, has cleared the site and is looking at other ways to bring in power; its other Microsoft contracts remain in place.
• The setback underscores the power and financing strain on miners pivoting to AI: U.K. data-center grid-connection requests total about 73 gigawatts, and CoinShares counts over 4 GW of AI capacity under contract across tracked miners, with only about 550 MW actually billing customers.