Nscale acquires Anyscale for $1.65B to build a vertically integrated AI compute empire

Nscale, the London-based AI cloud provider, is buying Anyscale for approximately $1.65 billion in a deal that marries hardware infrastructure with sophisticated workload orchestration software. The transaction, announced on July 30, is expected to close in the second half of 2026 pending regulatory approvals. Anyscale is the commercial company behind Ray, an open-source distributed computing framework originally developed at UC Berkeley. Ray handles the orchestration of AI workloads, spreading data processing, model training, inference, and reinforcement learning across massive GPU clusters. Companies can reportedly cut deployment costs by as much as 90% in some cases. Anyscale brings roughly 200 employees to the combined entity. The team will integrate into Nscale’s operations once the deal closes, giving the British company both the talent and the technology to build a vertically integrated AI platform. Nscale already owns its own data centers and power generation infrastructure. Adding Anyscale’s software layer on top means the company would control the full stack, from the electricity powering the GPUs to the software deciding which GPU handles which task. Disclosure: This arti...