What's happening
According to TechCrunch, Nscale and Anthropic are in talks for a second compute deal of the same size as the $45 billion agreement they announced in August. The report cites people familiar with the matter; neither company has confirmed the discussions.
Why it matters
Compute power for training and running AI models has become one of the industry's biggest cost centers. Leading model developers like Anthropic are locking in capacity early through long-term, multibillion-dollar deals with infrastructure providers.
What is a compute deal?
Such agreements typically involve an AI company leasing GPU capacity from a data center provider over a set period. On the provider side are next-generation cloud companies often called "neoclouds," such as Nscale.
Context
Nscale has also been in the spotlight over its IPO plans and valuation. Its expansion through deals of this scale intensifies competition in the AI infrastructure market.
