Nvidia Reportedly in Talks to Guarantee Billions in Debt for Nscale's Second Anthropic Data Center

Since Bloomberg reported on Oct. 19 that Anthropic and Nscale were negotiating a second compute contract worth roughly $45 billion, no signed agreement has been announced. A report on Thursday, Oct. 29 adds a new piece: Nvidia is reportedly in talks to provide Nscale with billions of dollars in credit guarantees for the debt needed to build a data center Anthropic plans to use. The report could not be immediately verified.

What the reported deal looks like

The contract would cover a second 460-megawatt building at Nscale's Monarch campus in West Virginia, running Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips. Anthropic would also get a right of first refusal on a planned third building.

The structure is simple. Nscale owns and operates the data center and the Nvidia chips inside it. Anthropic pays for capacity as it is delivered.

The first Monarch building was covered by a roughly $45 billion agreement signed in August. Anthropic's commitments to Nscale already stand at up to about $44.6 billion, according to the filing tied to Nscale's planned IPO. A second contract would bring the total to roughly $90 billion.

According to that same filing, Monarch's gross power capacity could exceed 8 gigawatts once fully developed.

When the Oct. 19 reports appeared, representatives for both companies declined to comment on the talks. Bloomberg's sources said a signing was possible within days. Ten days later, the deal has not closed.

Why a guarantee matters

The open question is money. Nscale has yet to secure financing for the first contract, and Anthropic can walk away if funding is not in place by a set deadline. The deadline itself has not been made public.

Credit guarantees from Nvidia would address exactly that kind of gap. They would let Nscale borrow against the strength of a $5 trillion chipmaker rather than against its own balance sheet.

That balance sheet is thin. Nscale reported a net loss of $1 billion on revenue of $141 million in the first half of 2026.

There is also a circular element. Nvidia is already an investor in Nscale. The data center would run Nvidia chips. A guarantee would put Nvidia's credit behind a buyer of its own product.

Permits, a lost tenant and concentration

The site carries unresolved risks beyond financing. Water and air permits for the gas-fired plant that would power the campus remain pending, and due diligence on the Anthropic deal is still under way.

Anthropic is stepping into a spot Microsoft vacated. Microsoft signed a letter of intent for the West Virginia site in March and left in the summer. Separately, Microsoft walked away from a planned Nscale data center in Loughton, England, after power-connection delays pushed expected electricity availability into the 2030s. OpenAI also exited a partnership with Nscale in April.

The Motley Fool's analysis points out that Microsoft and Anthropic together account for roughly 85% of Nscale's contract value. That is extreme customer concentration. Losing one of them would leave the company badly exposed.

Microsoft has offered a different reading of its own exit. It told investors the trouble was contained to the Loughton site and that its other commitments with Nscale remain intact.

The IPO overlay

Both companies are heading toward public markets. Nscale filed for a U.S. IPO in September and is reportedly aiming for a valuation of about $30 billion amid investor pushback. Another large contract would help that pitch.

Anthropic is still expected to go public this year. It is reportedly targeting a November listing at a valuation between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, though no firm date has been set.

The backdrop is jumpy. Last week, shares of rival neocloud CoreWeave slumped over its $50 billion debt load, feeding a selloff in AI stocks. The scale of spending has unsettled investors who worry AI companies are paying too much for too little profit.

Debt-funded infrastructure is now the pressure point. A Nvidia guarantee would shift some of that risk onto Nvidia's own credit rather than eliminate it.

What to watch

Three things will show whether this holds together. One is whether Nvidia's guarantees are confirmed and what size they take. Another is whether the West Virginia water and air permits come through. The third is whether financing for the first building lands before Anthropic's walk-away deadline passes.