Nvidia is in talks to guarantee billions of dollars in debt financing for Nscale's planned Anthropic data center in West Virginia, according to The Information. Bloomberg later corroborated the report.
Under a residual value guarantee, Nvidia would step in if Nscale defaulted on construction payments. It would temporarily take over the facility and help find a buyer and new tenant, according to The Information. The arrangement would help Nscale finance electricity and construction costs for its West Virginia campus.
Anthropic has signed a $44.6 billion contract for the first building alone, according to Nscale's IPO filing. That building is a 460-megawatt facility expected to use Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin chips. The companies are also discussing a second deal worth roughly $45 billion for another building, according to The Information.
The Information reported that Nvidia's earlier support for cloud providers has mostly covered leases and chip purchases, not construction. The Information also reported that Nvidia has extended roughly $170 billion in investments and credit support to neoclouds and large customers, including $1 billion in convertible financing committed to Nscale in September.
Nscale is seeking to go public at a valuation of up to $35 billion, according to the report. The company had about 25,000 advanced AI chips running in August, against a planned deployment of nearly 500,000. The West Virginia campus received state certification in September after months of negotiations. Runoff from the construction site has flooded nearby homes more than once, the report says.