Anthropic has agreed to pay $45 billion to lease the first of three buildings at Nscale’s planned Monarch data center campus in West Virginia, a person familiar with the matter told Semafor. The building covers 460 megawatts of capacity, and the Monarch project is slated to begin operations next year.
Nscale has described the full project as set to become one of the largest compute hubs in the world when completed.
Why the deal matters
The lease highlights how intense the competition for AI compute capacity has become, as AI companies seek to lock in large-scale resources during the ongoing infrastructure buildout.
Other tech companies were in talks
Both Google and Microsoft engaged with Nscale about renting capacity at Monarch, the source said, but the final lease went to Anthropic. Microsoft walked away over the summer amid a review of its data center portfolio and the share of on-site power generation. Discussions with Google did not result in a deal after internal reviews of the company’s computing needs and capital expenditure management.
Microsoft declined to comment, and Google did not respond to a request for comment.
Financial and industry context
On Google’s recent earnings call, Alphabet executives said the company faces supply constraints and is reevaluating how to deploy compute across its businesses, prioritizing frontier AI development that runs on Google’s custom infrastructure. Compute spending is rising: Alphabet raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast, indicated 2027 will be higher, and reported negative free cash flow last quarter as infrastructure investment more than doubled.
For Anthropic, the Monarch lease secures additional processing capacity ahead of the company’s planned IPO. In recent months Anthropic has also reached other major computing deals, including an agreement with Fluidstack worth $50 billion and one with SpaceX worth $45 billion.
London-based Nscale is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering as soon as next month.
Local reactions
As construction begins on data centers in West Virginia, some residents say they feel overlooked and are pushing back against the developments, according to WV Public Broadcasting. These local concerns feed into a broader national debate over the social and environmental impacts of the AI data center buildout.
Summary
Anthropic’s $45 billion lease for the first 460-megawatt building at Nscale’s Monarch campus secures significant compute capacity ahead of the campus opening next year. The transaction reflects growing demand and competition for AI infrastructure, set against rising industry capital spending and local resistance to new data center projects.
