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Microsoft pulls out of UK data center deal with Nscale, Telegraph reports

By Thomson Reuters Oct 18, 2026 | 5:01 AM

Oct 18 (Reuters) – Microsoft has pulled out of a data center deal with British ​cloud provider Nscale, Britain’s Telegraph ‌newspaper reported on Sunday.

The US tech giant, one of Nscale’s two largest customers, recently terminated its agreement ‌for ​the Loughton, Essex, ⁠data center, according ⁠to the report.

The newspaper did not specify why Microsoft withdrew from the project. Microsoft and Nscale ​did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment outside ⁠regular business hours.

Nscale ⁠filed for an initial ​public offering in the US ​last month, with Microsoft and Anthropic ‌expected to be its major customers, according to its prospectus.

Nscale provides infrastructure, including compute, power ⁠and data centers, as well as software for training and running AI ⁠models.

The Nvidia-backed ‌AI group, which competes ⁠against CoreWeave, Nebius, Crusoe and Lambda, ​has ‌grown rapidly since its launch, ​scaling ⁠from $100 million to more than $103 billion in total contracted value in just two-and-a-half years.

(Reporting by Nethra Sailesh in Bengaluru; Editing by ​Joe Bavier)