Nvidia in Talks to Back Nscale's West Virginia AI Data Center Debt

Nvidia is negotiating a multibillion-dollar debt guarantee for AI cloud provider Nscale's planned Anthropic data center in West Virginia, The Information reported Thursday, with Bloomberg later corroborating. Under a residual value guarantee, the chipmaker would cover construction payment defaults, temporarily take over the facility and help secure a buyer and new tenant. Anthropic has signed a $44.6 billion contract for the campus's first 460-megawatt building, which is expected to use Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin chips, according to Nscale's IPO filing. The companies are discussing a second deal worth roughly $45 billion. Nscale is seeking a public listing at a valuation of up to $35 billion. The arrangement would mark a shift for Nvidia, whose prior support for cloud providers largely covered leases and chip purchases rather than construction. Nvidia has extended roughly $170 billion in investments and credit support to neoclouds and large customers, including $1 billion in convertible financing committed to Nscale in September. Neocloud shares, including CoreWeave, Nebius and IREN, had each fallen more than 30% in October as of last week, CNBC reported.