U.K.-based AI infrastructure hyperscaler Nscale has secured $2 billion in Series C funding, marking the largest venture round in European history for an AI infrastructure company. As a result, the funding values the company at $14.6 billion and accelerates its expansion of vertically integrated AI infrastructure across Europe, North America, and Asia.
Notably, The round was led by Aker ASA and 8090 Industries, with participation from Astra Capital Management, Citadel, Dell, Jane Street, Lenovo, Linden Advisors, Nokia, NVIDIA, and Point72. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and J.P. Morgan acted as joint placement agents in connection with the raise, which includes the Pre-Series C SAFE.
With this capital infusion, Nscale plans to accelerate deployments across the AI infrastructure stack. The expansion spans GPU compute, networking systems, data services, and orchestration software.
As global demand for production-grade AI infrastructure intensifies, Nscale aims to remove one of the industry’s most pressing constraints: the ability to deploy large-scale compute capacity reliably.
Meanwhile, AI adoption continues to expand across industries and national economies. However, infrastructure deployment, not demand, increasingly defines the pace of AI adoption. Consequently, Nscale has positioned itself as a vertically integrated platform capable of delivering operational AI capacity at industrial scale.
“This is the fourth industrial revolution; the world is changing at a rapid pace. Over the next 5 years, Artificial Intelligence will be integrated into every industry, every product, and every job. Accelerating drug discovery, extending human life, autonomizing travel and robotics, lifting productivity, and driving massive growth. This is leading to the largest infrastructure buildout in human history,” said Josh Payne, CEO and Founder of Nscale. “Nscale is leading this buildout. We are building this foundation that the market sits on, the engine of superintelligence.”
Strategic Board Expansion Adds Global Technology Leadership
Alongside the funding announcement, Nscale confirmed a major governance expansion with the appointment of Sheryl Sandberg, Susan Decker, and Nick Clegg to its Board of Directors. The appointments add extensive experience in global technology scaling, governance, and policy to Nscale’s leadership.
Currently, Sandberg serves as co-founder of Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, a private investment firm supporting innovation across consumer, enterprise, climate, and healthcare technology. Previously, she served as Chief Operating Officer of Meta and held an early leadership role at Google, where she helped scale global digital platforms.
Meanwhile, Susan Decker, CEO and co-founder of community platform Raftr, brings decades of executive and board leadership. She previously served as President of Yahoo and currently sits on the boards of Costco Wholesale Corporation, Berkshire Hathaway, Vail Resorts, Chime, Vox Media, and Automattic.
Nick Clegg joins the board with deep experience in both policy and technology governance. A former U.K. Deputy Prime Minister and former President of Global Affairs at Meta, Clegg now serves as a General Partner at Hiro Capital, where he focuses on emerging spatial computing technologies.
Norway Integration Streamlines AI Infrastructure Execution
Nscale also announced a structural shift in its Norway operations. The company has reached an agreement with Aker to fully integrate the Aker Nscale joint venture, originally announced in July 2025, into the Nscale organization.
Under the new structure, however, Aker remains a major shareholder, while its CEO Øyvind Eriksen continues to serve on the Nscale Board of Directors. According to the company, the integration will strengthen execution speed while preserving commitments to regional economic development.
Nscale confirmed that its environmental and community initiatives, including waste heat reuse, local workforce development, and infrastructure investment will remain unchanged as projects expand.
Øyvind Eriksen, President and CEO of Aker ASA said, “This step strengthens execution by putting delivery and governance under one roof, while keeping continuity for the people and projects already underway. We have full confidence in Nscale’s ability to deliver responsibly in Norway over the long term, and we believe this positions the work for faster progress and durable value creation.”
Infrastructure Becomes the Defining Constraint of the AI Economy
Increasingly, Investors view AI infrastructure as the critical bottleneck shaping the next phase of technological competition. At the same time, while model innovation continues at pace, industrial-scale compute deployment requires integrated systems.
Rayyan Islam, the Co-founder and General Partner of 8090 Industries said, “We are living through a new era defined by AI, and the limiting factor is infrastructure. Compute, energy, and industrial-scale deployment capacity will determine which nations and companies lead the next generation of technological and economic progress. Nscale has built a platform uniquely capable of solving this challenge by vertically integrating the critical layers of AI infrastructure from energy and data centers to compute and orchestration.At 8090 Industries, we invest in the systems that enable entire industries to scale and are proud to partner with Josh and the Nscale team as they build the foundational backbone for the global AI economy.”
The Broader Perspective
The scale of Nscale’s Series C signals a structural shift in venture capital priorities. Investors increasingly favor companies that control the physical and operational layers of AI deployment, not just the software models.
Ultimately, by integrating compute infrastructure, networking, and orchestration into a single platform, Nscale is positioning itself as a foundational layer of the AI economy.
