Key points
- Nvidia weighs backing Nscale's data center debt
- Nscale's September filing disclosed no binding financing
- Nvidia already guarantees an Nscale lease in Texas
Nvidia (NVDA) is in talks to give Nscale billions of dollars in credit guarantees for debt to build a 460-megawatt data center that Anthropic plans to use, according to The Information. The deal hasn't been signed, and its terms could change. The reporting so far doesn't make clear which of two Anthropic projects at Nscale's West Virginia campus the debt would fund.
A credit guarantee is a promise to repay a borrower's debt if the borrower can't. It can help the borrower raise more money at a lower interest rate. Nvidia already supplies Nscale's chips, has committed $1 billion to the company, and guarantees one of its leases.
Nvidia shares were down 5.6% at $201.70 at 2:56 p.m. ET on Friday, October 30, during a broad selloff in chip stocks.
Nscale reported no Anthropic financing in September
Anthropic agreed on August 25 to pay Nscale up to about $44.6 billion for computing at Nscale's Monarch Compute Campus in West Virginia, Nscale's IPO filing shows. The agreements cover Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 systems, delivered in four tranches.
In that September 18 filing, Nscale said it had "not obtained binding commitments for any of the financings required to fund performance under the Anthropic Services Agreements." The contract requires Nscale to use best efforts to line up that financing within a specified period. "There can be no assurance that we will obtain any of the required financings on acceptable terms or at all," the filing says.
Anthropic is also in talks for a second deal of about $45 billion, covering another 460-megawatt building at the same campus. Nscale plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NSCL. It hasn't set a price range.
Nvidia is already Nscale's supplier, investor, and guarantor
In October 2025, Nvidia agreed to guarantee up to $860.3 million of Nscale's payments on a Texas data center lease for its first five years, the IPO filing shows. Nscale gave Nvidia warrants valued at $60 million in return, and it keeps $470.0 million in an escrow account as recourse for Nvidia.
Nvidia also committed $1 billion to Nscale's $3.36 billion pre-IPO convertible financing, with funding expected in mid-November. The notes convert into shares automatically when Nscale goes public, and Nvidia's convert into non-voting shares.
Nvidia has disclosed other guarantees
In its latest quarterly report, for the period ended July 26, Nvidia said it had guaranteed select AI cloud partners' data center lease obligations in the event of their default. Its maximum gross exposure under those agreements is $3.5 billion.
In August, Nvidia also agreed to guarantees capped at $105 billion for leases at SB Energy's Ohio campus, which will host Nvidia computing for an OpenAI affiliate. Each guarantee takes effect when its lease begins, and the first of the campus's nine data centers is expected to come into service in Nvidia's fiscal 2029.
"Securing land, power, and shell for data centers is a critical phase in the AI infrastructure buildout," Nvidia wrote in the filing. "These strategic commitments and guarantees may impact our financial results and are dependent on the performance of our customers and partners."
