By Saf Malik
Publication Date: 2026-11-05 12:18:00
The company has declined an option to more than double the size of its contract to rent computing power from Nscale at a data centre site in Ward County, Texas, the Financial Times reported this week, citing three people familiar with the matter. The expansion could have been worth tens of billions of dollars to the London-based AI infrastructure company.
Microsoft and Nscale both declined to comment to the FT. One of the people the FT spoke to said Microsoft took the decision months ago, before Nscale filed for its US listing in September, and that the existing Texas contract remains in place.
The timing still matters. Nscale filed publicly in September to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NSCL, and has yet to file a price range or set a listing date. It is reportedly aiming for a valuation of about $30bn to $35bn, but Bloomberg reported last month that some prospective investors were pushing for $16bn to $19bn.
Texas is also the third time in seven months that…