Nscale seeks to raise $3B in US IPO amid AI data center boom

Nscale, a London-based AI infrastructure company that barely existed two years ago, is planning to raise up to $3 billion in a US initial public offering. The company is targeting a September 2026 listing, with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan guiding the process. For a company founded in 2024, going public at a $14.6 billion valuation with $51 billion in contracted revenue is the kind of trajectory that makes even seasoned investors do a double-take. From spin-off to IPO in two years Nscale was created by Josh Payne, who spun it out of Arkon Energy in 2024. The company operates as what the industry calls a “neocloud,” essentially an AI-native hyperscaler building data centers purpose-built for GPU-heavy AI workloads rather than retrofitting traditional cloud infrastructure. The fundraising pace tells the story. Nscale pulled in $1.1 billion in a Series B round in late 2025, then followed that up with a $2 billion Series C in March 2026 that pegged its valuation at $14.6 billion. It also secured a $900 million credit facility in July 2026. Nscale’s $51 billion in contracted revenue represents a backlog of committed compute deals. Customers are locking in capacity years in advance because...