Tech
AI infrastucture provider Nscale secures $1.1bn in series B funding | Computer Weekly

Artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure provider Nscale has secured $1.1bn in series B funding, a week after it was announced the firm would be working with the UK government to deploy the UK’s largest graphics processing unit (GPU) cluster.
The company claims it is the largest Series B funding round ever secured in the UK and Europe. It was led by Norwegian industrial investment company Aker ASA, with support from the firm’s existing shareholders, and tech firms Nokia and NVIDIA.
Nscale, which has a UK headquarters, was incorporated in May 2024 after being spun out of Australian crypto-mining infrastructure provider, Arkon Energy.
As previously reported by Computer Weekly, the majority of its directors are located overseas, and it announced plans to open a UK datacentre in Loughton, Essex, by late 2026.
Earlier this month, the company announced a technology tie-up with software giant Microsoft that would see the pair collaborate to create the UK’s largest supercomputer at its site in Loughton.
At present, its largest infrastructure investment appears to be in Norway, while Arkon Energy is known to have operated out of datacentres in Ohio in the United States.
The company said it plans to use the investment to accelerate the deployment of Nscale’s large-scale AI infrastructure across Europe, North America and the Middle East. This is in support of its involvement in projects such as OpenAI’s bid to build sovereign AI compute capacity in Norway and the UK through its respective Stargate Norway and UK initiatives. According to Nscale, Stargate Norway is targeting the deployment of 100,000 NVIDIA GPUs by the end of 2026.
Nscale said the funding will also be used to expand the size of its engineering and operations teams, in support of its plans to grow its customer base within the enterprise and government sectors worldwide.
Josh Payne, CEO of Nscale, said: “We are creating one of the largest global platforms of its kind – purpose-built to meet surging demand and unlock breakthroughs at unprecedented scale.
“This allows Nscale to provide our customers access to scarce, and highly sought after, compute capacity and rapidly accelerate the build-out of secure, compliant and energy-efficient AI infrastructure. Europe needs a hyperscaler, and Nscale is rising to the challenge.”
Øyvind Eriksen, president and CEO at Aker ASA, added: “The scale and quality of this Series B round are a testament to Nscale’s vision and momentum – and to the strength of our collaboration.”
Since the launch of the government’s AI opportunities action plan policy paper in January 2025, Nscale has been name-checked in ministerial speeches and press releases from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
Kanishka Narayan, the UK’s AI minister, said the company is playing an important role in helping the government achieve its aim of positioning the UK as an AI superpower.
“The success of UK-founded companies like Nscale shows how our country can be at the cutting edge of AI,” said Narayan. “By attracting global expertise and investment, it is building the essential infrastructure for the UK to compete internationally, drive growth and create jobs across the country.”
Tech
Nscale explained: Everything you need to know | Computer Weekly

The UK government has set itself an ambitious target of becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) superpower, and this is a position it is seeking to secure by championing the developers of homegrown AI tools and technologies.
As the government pithily stated in its January 2025 AI opportunities action plan document: “We must be an AI maker, not just an AI taker: we need companies at the frontier that will be our UK national champions.”
One company the government certainly seems to be championing to fill that role is AI infrastructure provider Nscale, which has previously described itself as the UK’s “only full stack sovereign AI infrastructure provider”.
Since the start of 2025, the company has received passing mentions in various ministerial speeches, building up to its CEO, Josh Payne, being quoted in press releases issued by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) about the government’s ambitious AI agenda.
On 16 September 2025, the company was name-checked as “British firm Nscale” in two government press releases – one detailing its work with ChatGPT creator OpenAI to create sovereign AI compute capacity, and another about its involvement in Microsoft’s bid to create the UK’s largest AI supercomputer in Loughton, Essex.
For a company that was, according to Companies House, only incorporated in May 2024, the calibre of its technology collaborators and the high regard the government appears to hold it in is curious to say the least.
Especially the latter’s trumpeting of the company as a British tech success story, given – as confirmed by Companies House – the majority of its directors are based in the US, and the bulk of its built datacentre infrastructure is in Norway.
So, where did Nscale come from? And why is the government so sure its technology holds the key to it becoming an AI maker, rather than an AI taker?
What is the background to Nscale?
Nscale was incorporated in the UK on 29 May 2024, with Companies House confirming the company has seven directors, with four of them residing in the US, two in the UK and one in Australia.
Among the UK directors is the company’s chief executive Payne, who is also the only director listed as being a person of “significant control”.
Nscale is understood to have been spun out of a company founded by Payne and another individual – Nathan Townsend, also a director at Nscale – called Arkon Energy, which specialises in the provision of cryptocurrency mining and renewably powered datacentre infrastructure from sites in Ohio, the US and Norway.
In December 2023, Payne posted on LinkedIn that Arkon Energy had secured $110m in funding, which he declared to be the “largest private funding round for a bitcoin mining platform” that year.
The post stated that the funding will be used to triple the company’s US-based datacentre capacity to 300MW, and pave the way for it to launch its AI Cloud Service platform from its existing datacentre in Norway.
“It has been an amazing year for Arkon Energy, having started the year with an operating capacity of 30MW and now ending the year with a portfolio of 330MW in total that is funded, [and] expected to be fully operational by Q3 2024,” wrote Payne.
Several months later, in February 2024, there was an abortive attempt started to get Arkon Energy listed on the Euronext Amsterdam Stock Exchange via a reverse merger with a shell company known as BM3EAC.
However, nine months later, in November 2024, it was confirmed that both companies had terminated discussions on the matter, and – during the intervening period – Nscale was spun out of Arkon.
Townsend is still listed as working for Arkon Energy (and Nscale) on his LinkedIn profile, but the Arkon Energy website appears to have disappeared from the internet altogether.
What does Nscale actually do?
Nscale markets itself as an AI hyperscaler that provides the datacentres, software and applications that enterprises and governments need to deliver on their own AI ambitions.
The company has its flagship Glomfjord datacentre in Norway, which is reportedly powered by hydroelectricity, and claims to have a “global pipeline of greenfield datacentres” under development.
Does Nscale have any UK datacentres?
The company announced in January 2025 that it planned to invest $2.5bn in the UK datacentre industry over the next three years, having purchased its first UK site in Loughton.
Nscale said the site is equipped with 50MW of AI and high-performance compute capacity, which could be scaled up to 90MW, and should be live by late 2026. The company said it also plans to start building multiple modular datacentres in the UK, during the second half of 2025.
What about its partnerships and acquisitions?
Since its inception, the company has hit the acquisition trail to build out the capabilities of its AI infrastructure proposition, having snapped up Kontena, which specialises in the provision of high-density, modular generative AI datacentres, in July 2024.
It has also struck a few high-profile partnerships, including with OpenAI. It is collaborating with the company on its Stargate Norway initiative, which will see it help deliver 290MW of renewably powered compute capacity in the country, as announced in August 2025.
The company is also working with OpenAI and Nvidia in the UK on Stargate UK, as part of a government-backed push to build out the sovereign compute capacity for the sole purpose of hosting AI models.
As previously mentioned, the company is also involved in Microsoft’s bid to create the UK’s largest AI supercomputer in Loughton.
What has the UK government said about Nscale?
Quite a bit, as it goes. The company has been name-checked in ministerial speeches and DSIT press releases a fair amount since the government published its AI opportunities action plan document on 13 January 2025.
On that day, Nscale was described in a government press release as “one of the UK’s leading AI companies”, which is a bold claim for a company that – at that point – had only been in operation around eight months.
Exactly what information this descriptor was based on is unclear, given the company was – as confirmed by Companies House – still eight months shy of having to submit its first set of accounts at that point, which would give a clearer idea of its performance.
In another DSIT press release, released two days after the AI opportunities action plan report materialised in January 2025, Nscale is described by the government as “one of our leading home-grown success stories”.
Again, the “home-grown” descriptor is one that warrants closer examination, given that the majority of its directors are located overseas, the bulk of its infrastructure appears to be located in Norway, and the company it span out from was founded in Australia.
While Nscale was incorporated in the UK in May 2024, a profile on the company published around this time on overseas tech site IT Brief Australia also describes the company as being Norwegian.
The company does have a headquarters in the UK, and confirmed on 2 September 2025 that it is opening an office in Mayfair, London.
How is Nscale being funded?
In December 2024, Nscale announced it had raised $155m on the back of an “oversubscribed” series A funding round, which it claimed would allow it to accelerate the company’s expansion across Europe and North America.
Some 12 months before this, in December 2023, the company is understood to have also raised $30m in seed funding.
“Since launching from stealth in May 2024, Nscale has experienced insatiable demand for AI infrastructure, quickly growing its pipeline of greenfield datacentres across Europe and North America from 300MW to 1.3GW, with 120MW planned for 2025 development,” said the company, in the accompanying press release.
“The hyperscaler [Nscale] is now uniquely positioned to capitalise on the market for large-scale AI infrastructure, and can deliver bespoke GPU [graphics processing unit] clusters at any scale for governments, AI scaleups and global enterprises.”
Tech
Xiaomi’s New Phone One-Ups Apple’s iPhone Redesign With a Second Screen

Bearing in mind this is the Chinese model (there’s no word on a global edition yet), I was unable to test all of the functionality, but I have a good idea what will work here and what doesn’t. I love the time and notifications, because I don’t have to pick up my phone as much when it’s face down on the desk and I’m working.
The customizable themes and pets are fun. It’s an opportunity to add a little more personality to your phone. While the real-time updates work only with select Chinese apps right now, the utility is clear, and the music controls are very handy. The selfie preview is an obvious benefit, as the photos you can take with the main camera far surpass those taken with any front-facing camera.
Photograph: Simon Hill
I’m also excited about the pin function. You know that awkward dance you do when you’re queuing? You have the QR code that they’ll scan in a minute open on your phone, but you want to continue reading or messaging. Well, this allows you to pin it on the back display and get on with what you’re doing. While I wasn’t able to test it, I know this will be handy.
As a big retro gaming fan, I love the look and feel of the case, and it automatically connects via Bluetooth and triggers the game mode. But once I got over the novelty, I was left wondering why I would ever want to play a game on a tiny screen interrupted by camera lenses when I have one of the most gorgeous 6.7-inch phone displays I’ve ever used in my hand. I tried Angry Birds 2, and it’s totally playable on the back display, but just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
And the Rest
Naturally, the 17 Pro Max is a specs beast, and the 17 Pro isn’t far behind. Both are powered by Qualcomm’s brand-new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, and my review unit has 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. The displays feature Xiaomi’s new M10 display technology, and it is sharp and power-efficient, and it gets very bright.
Tech
Amazon Might Owe You $51. Here’s How to Find Out if You’re Eligible

Amazon customers with a Prime subscription will soon be able to make claims online for their share of the $1.5 billion the company is being ordered to pay to users in the United States.
It’s all part of a recent settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission. Amazon now has to “provide $1.5 billion in refunds back to consumers harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices,” according to a press release from the FTC. The total settlement with the FTC is $2.5 billion, as it includes a $1 billion penalty.
“There was no admission of guilt in this settlement by the company or any executives,” says Alisa Carroll, an Amazon spokesperson, in an email sent to WIRED on Thursday after the decision was released. “The settlement largely requires us to maintain the sign-up and cancellation process that has been in place for several years—not to make additional changes.” She says Amazon will comply with the settlement’s decision.
Who Gets the Amazon Cash?
In most cases, those who are eligible and make a claim will eventually receive $51 in total. If you’re one of the millions of Amazon Prime members in the US, odds are you’re curious about whether you can get some of these Bezos bucks. Eligibility hinges on two broad factors, according to the court order filed on Thursday.
First, the decision includes any US customers who signed up for Prime “through a Challenged Enrollment Flow” in the last six years—from June 23, 2019 to June 23, 2025, to be exact. What counts as a “challenged” sign-up process? The order says it’s “any version of the Universal Prime Decision Page, the Shipping Option Select Page, Prime Video enrollment flow, or the Single Page Checkout.”
That’s quite extensive! Unless you went directly to the Prime subscription site to enroll, you very well may have encountered multiple nudges from Amazon during the process that fall under this “challenged” sign-up umbrella.
The second group eligible to make a claim are Amazon Prime customers who started the process of canceling their subscription, but didn’t complete the cancellation. The ruling covers the same six year time period. It includes users who became frustrated with the cancellation process and quit halfway through as well as those who took a “Save Offer” that incentivized them to keep the membership for longer.
Customers who fall into either of these two groups, having enrollment or cancellation issues, are eligible to make a claim. It’s not required for you to fit into both categories to get money from the settlement.
What’s Next?
Not everyone who’s eligible will need to submit a claim to get the cash. “Some consumers will receive automatic payments in the next 90 days,” says FTC spokesperson Christopher Bissex in an email sent to WIRED. “The rest of eligible consumers will receive a notification from Amazon, and will have the opportunity to submit a simple claim form.”
Subscribers who used three or fewer of the benefits provided through Prime in a single year may receive the automatic payment, whereas more avid Prime users will need to make a claim. The specifics about what exactly counts as a single “benefit” remain vague.
WIRED will update this article as more information becomes available and detail how impacted customers will be able to make their claim with Amazon. In previous instances, like the FTC’s Equifax settlement, many of those eligible made claims through a dedicated website.
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