British artificial intelligence infrastructure start-up Nscale has added Nick Clegg and Sheryl Sandberg to its board after completing a major fundraising round valuing the company at $14.6 billion. The company secured $2 billion in fresh capital from a consortium of global investors, including US semiconductor group Nvidia, cementing its status as one of Europe’s most valuable technology start-ups. The new funding underscores surging investor demand for the infrastructure needed to power the rapid growth of artificial intelligence across industries.
Founded in May 2024 by entrepreneur John Payne, Nscale is focused on building large data centres to run advanced artificial intelligence models and cloud computing services. Payne said “over the next five years, artificial intelligence will be integrated into every industry, every product and every job,” predicting it will accelerate drug discovery, extend human life, automate travel and robotics, lift productivity and drive major economic growth. The company plans to invest $2.5 billion in UK data centre infrastructure over the coming years, including what it describes as the largest “UK sovereign” artificial intelligence data centre, located in Loughton, Essex and expected to be operational by 2026. The facility will host UK-based artificial intelligence infrastructure to support national research institutions, businesses and government operations, relying heavily on Nvidia GPUs to deliver the necessary computing power.
The appointments of Clegg and Sandberg bring heavyweight political, regulatory and operational experience as Nscale scales up. Clegg, a former UK deputy prime minister, previously served as president of global affairs at Meta and is expected to help navigate evolving international regulation of artificial intelligence technologies. Sandberg, Meta’s former chief operating officer, is credited with helping build the company into one of the world’s largest technology firms and brings deep leadership and execution expertise. They join Susan Decker, former Yahoo president and current chief executive and co-founder of Raftr, who also sits on the boards of Costco, Berkshire Hathaway and Vox Media. The latest funding round, backed by Aker ASA and New York-based 8090 Industries alongside Nvidia, builds on Nscale’s $155 million Series A in December 2024 led by Sandton Capital Partners and an earlier Nvidia commitment of approximately £500 million. Nvidia founder Jensen Huang has described Nscale as a potential “national champion” for Britain, aligning with the UK government’s ambition to strengthen the country’s position as a global hub for artificial intelligence research and development through large-scale data centre investment.
