Microsoft plans to rent data center capacity in Portugal from Nscale: report

[Aerial flying close to Christ the King statue with view of Lisbon Portugal]
Nisian Hughes/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/MSFT]) plans to rent data center capacity from Nscale in a new facility in Portugal that will be powered by Nvidia's (NASDAQ:NVDA [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/NVDA]) artificial intelligence chips, according to Bloomberg.

The facility, located south of Lisbon, is expected to open early next year and will utilize 12,600 of Nvidia's Blackwell Ultra GPUs, according to the report [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-14/microsoft-to-rent-nscale-ai-data-center-capacity-in-portugal]. Microsoft needs some of its capacity to meet the swelling demands of AI.

Nscale is a U.K.-based hyperscaler. Last month, the company announced a partnership with Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI (OPENAI [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/OPENAI]) to develop 50 megawatts of AI capacity at a campus in Loughton, just north of London. It also completed a $1.1B Series B fundraising campaign in September, which proved to be the largest in European history. It followed this historic fundraising effort with the closing of a $413M Pre-Series C Safe, which was backed by companies such as Nvidia and Dell (DELL [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/DELL]).

"We're overwhelmed by the interest we've received," said Josh Payne, CEO and founder of Nscale. "It's incredible to see the passion and confidence we have in Nscale is matched by key investors. This commitment to participating in our pre-Series C SAFE, just days after the close of our Series B funding, represents a powerful endorsement of our vision to deliver sovereign, scalable infrastructure for the AI era."

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