Nscale, a UK company crucial to the government’s AI ambitions, has secured $2bn (£1. 5bn) in a funding round and appointed former Meta executives Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg to its board of directors. This raises the valuation of the London-based startup, backed by US tech company Nvidia, to $14. 6bn, according to a statement. This follows a $1. 1bn funding round the company secured last September. Clegg, the former UK deputy prime minister, “brings deep expertise at the intersection of technology, policy, and global affairs, ” the company said, adding that he is “at the centre of the most consequential regulatory and governance conversations shaping the future of AI. ” Sandberg, the former Meta chief operating officer, brings “unmatched experience in scaling the world’s most influential technology companies, ” the statement said. Nscale is set to contribute to Stargate UK, a major infrastructure partnership announced last year involving OpenAI and Nvidia. It will also build a supercomputer in Loughton, part of a government initiative to integrate AI into the UK economy. The supercomputer is expected to be operational later this year, according to the government and Nscale. “The success of UK-based Nscale shows how firms are seizing this opportunity to invest, expand and create jobs in this country, ” technology secretary Liz Kendall said in a statement. “We have Europe’s leading AI ecosystem, and this news further underlines the growing international confidence in the UK as the natural home of AI innovation. ” Nscale was spun out of the Australian bitcoin mining company Arkon Energy in 2024.

Its website highlights datacentres across the US and Europe, including the UK, Portugal, Norway, and Iceland. However, most of these do not appear to be datacentres that Nscale itself built; its flagship project in Norway, Glomfjord, was originally developed by Norwegian firm Hydrokraft. Nscale’s UK investments are part of a global surge in AI deal-making announced last year, as governments and mainly US tech companies committed substantial funds to expand vast datacentre infrastructure and fundamentally reshape the global economy. Last September, the UK government said US tech companies would invest £31bn in building the UK’s AI infrastructure. In the US, OpenAI declared a $500bn commitment to AI infrastructure development as part of the Stargate project, with participation from Oracle and SoftBank. Nvidia revealed numerous AI deals, including sovereign agreements, a £500m investment in Nscale, and a $100bn investment in OpenAI, primarily aimed at purchasing its own chips.