Why a Microsoft AI data center in England may be left without power

The site was supposed to host some 23,000 Nvidia graphics processors for Microsoft's AI services. In Loughton, Essex, northeast of London, British startup Nscale will now have to find another customer. On October 18, the daily newspaper The Telegraph revealed that Microsoft was giving up on occupying this data center. Bloomberg picked up the story, and Nscale responded with a statement.

Neither company gave a reason, and Microsoft declined to comment. But the project has a known problem: according to The Next Web, power grid authorities warned Nscale not to expect a grid connection before the 2030s.

A giant contract announced a year ago

In October 2025, Nscale and Microsoft announced a deal covering about 200,000 Nvidia GB300 chips, spread across four sites: Loughton in England, Sines in Portugal, Narvik in Norway and a site in Texas, TechCrunch reported at the time. For Loughton, deliveries were due to begin in 2027.

Nscale now says its relationship with Microsoft remains “strong and long-term.” According to the company, this grid problem, which it says affects the entire London region, has no effect on its other contracts. It says it is still committed to Loughton and is looking at other power sources, as well as other sites in the United Kingdom.

A heavy blow ahead of the IPO

The timing is awkward. Nscale is preparing an initial public offering in New York to raise up to $3 billion, possibly as early as this October. According to its own filing, Microsoft and Anthropic account for about 85% of its contracts. Anthropic committed in August to spend $45 billion there over six years, according to The Next Web.

Other signals are worrying investors. Bloomberg reports that Nscale's Norwegian site, presented as its flagship, is six months behind schedule: 6.4 megawatts are in service out of the 30 planned. The market climate isn't helping either: shares of CoreWeave, another AI-focused compute provider, lost 25% in a week, and Australia's Firmus dropped its listing for lack of investors.

What this means for compute buyers

For a European company looking for AI computing capacity, the lesson is very concrete: announced capacity is not capacity that is plugged in. Before signing, it is worth asking the provider a few simple questions: where does the site's grid connection stand, how many megawatts are actually in service today, and what fallback is planned in case of delay. These energy issues also weigh on European players, as with Scaleway, which is installing its first supercomputer outside France, in Sweden.

It remains to be seen who will take over the Loughton capacity, and whether investors will back Nscale despite the loss of one of its two biggest customers.