Nscale's $30 Billion IPO Filing Puts Nvidia on Three Sides of the Deal

Josh Payne's letter to investors in the Nscale prospectus↗ promises "prudent leverage" and capital matched to the revenues behind it ¹. The same pages report a $1.02 billion first-half net loss on $140.6 million of revenue, more than seven times the top line ². On 18 September 2026, Payne filed to take public a company launched in 2024 from crypto miner Arkon Energy ⁴⁵.

The ask: double the March mark

The NYSE listing, led by Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley, targets a valuation of about $30 billion, double its $14.6 billion March mark, on revenue that grew 1,252% from $10.4 million a year earlier ². The pitch leans on $56.4 billion of remaining performance obligations; the balance sheet carries more than $8 billion of debt ¹.

Nvidia holds three seats at this table

The filing puts Nvidia in three positions at once. It is an equity holder, from the $1.1 billion Series B of September 2025 alongside Dell, Nokia and Fidelity, and a lender under a 15 September subscription agreement↗ worth at least $3.1 billion, including $1 billion from Nvidia in convertible notes or non-voting shares, closing around 16 November ³.

The third seat is supplier: roughly 200,000 GB300 GPUs contracted for Microsoft, and the Vera Rubin systems bound for the Monarch campus in West Virginia ³⁷⁸.

Nvidia sells the chips, lends the money to buy them and owns a piece of the buyer.

Two customers carry 85% of the book

Total contract value reached $103.4 billion by 31 August, up from $38 billion at end-2025, and only $2.6 billion was active ³. Microsoft agreements run to up to $43.8 billion through December 2033; Anthropic signed on 25 August for up to $44.6 billion, the roughly $45 billion, six-year, 460-megawatt commitment at Monarch↗ ³⁷. Together they carry $88.4 billion, about 85% of the book ³.

Half the top line has no name

One unnamed customer supplied 52% of first-half revenue, and the prospectus names Microsoft and Anthropic as major customers only "in future periods" ². If that customer is one of them, half the top line and 85% of the book hang on the same two names; if it is neither, the giants behind the book have barely begun paying.

The fleet tells the same story: about 25,000 GPUs were running as of 31 August, against roughly 461,000 active or contracted ¹³⁶. The Anthropic contracts allow termination if required project financing, none of it binding when the prospectus was filed, fails to arrive ³.

Demand is the defense

Compute is still scarce enough to reprice: Nebius unveiled price hikes this week and CoreWeave says it keeps signing at higher ones ². Figure committed $3.5 billion of compute, with Nscale taking an equity stake in the robot maker ¹⁶. "There are still major bottlenecks in AI compute and power infrastructure," says Renaissance Capital strategist Matt Kennedy, who calls the $100 billion-plus book the main selling point ².

The amendments will name the anchor

No share count or price range has been set ³. Watch the amendments for the name behind the 52%, for signed project financing, and for Nvidia's tranche. The filing landed four days after AI stocks slumped on the lab chiefs' slowdown calls, with Sam Altman saying OpenAI would not proceed with an IPO this year ⁹. Public buyers are asked to bridge $2.6 billion running against $103.4 billion promised ³.