Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot, is reportedly negotiating a second compute contract with Nscale, an AI infrastructure provider, for around $45 billion. This new agreement would cover a second 460-megawatt building at Nscale's Monarch campus in West Virginia, according to sources familiar with the discussions. The terms of this prospective deal are expected to mirror the $45 billion agreement signed by the two companies in August for the first data center on the same site.
The initial August deal committed Anthropic to spend $45 billion over six years to lease data center computing capacity from Nscale. This arrangement involves Nscale owning and operating the data center and the Nvidia chips within it, with Anthropic paying for capacity as it becomes available. The proposed second deal would provide Anthropic with access to Nvidia's Vera Rubin GPUs. Anthropic also holds a right of first refusal on a planned third building at the Monarch campus.
The reported talks come as both Anthropic and Nscale prepare for potential initial public offerings (IPOs). Anthropic is expected to go public this year, while Nscale is targeting a New York listing. Nscale's recent IPO prospectus reportedly listed existing infrastructure agreements with Anthropic worth up to $44.6 billion.
Securing this additional capacity could provide reassurance to Nscale investors, particularly after Microsoft recently withdrew from a planned data center deal with Nscale in the UK due to power-connection delays. OpenAI also exited a partnership with Nscale in April. Nscale reported a net loss of $1 billion on revenue of $141 million in the first half of 2026.
The scale of these compute deals has prompted some investor concern that AI companies may be overspending for future profits. Last week, shares in rival CoreWeave reportedly declined due to concerns about its $50 billion debt load, contributing to a broader sell-off in AI stocks. Despite these concerns, Anthropic continues to pursue such partnerships, driven by the demand for its Claude AI chatbot and a belief in long-term returns.
The deal is not yet finalized and could still change. Due diligence on the second building is ongoing, and key permits for the West Virginia site, including water and air permits for the gas-fired plant powering the campus, remain pending. Nscale must also secure financing for the first contract, with Anthropic retaining the option to withdraw if funding is not in place by a specified deadline.
Beyond Nscale, Anthropic has entered into other major compute agreements, including a reported $50 billion deal with Fluidstack Ltd., a $10 billion deal with Volta Infrastructure Holdings Ltd., and a $45 billion arrangement with Elon Musk's SpaceX, which was disclosed in SpaceX's IPO prospectus.