Microsoft withdraws from Nscale's Essex data center, leaving the site without its only announced customer

Microsoft ended its agreement to anchor Nscale's planned data center in Loughton, Essex, where it was expected to rent 23,000 Nvidia chips. The Telegraph reported the withdrawal, and Reuters said Microsoft, one of Nscale's two largest customers, had not yet responded to a request for comment. The newspaper said Nscale had faced repeated delays, and power grid officials told it a supply would not arrive until the 2030s. Nscale has pitched a multibillion-dollar US listing at up to a $35B valuation, and the Norway delay had already clouded that plan. Losing the site's only announced tenant adds pressure on the timeline. Nscale's spokesperson said the relationship with Microsoft remains strong and that the grid issue has no effect on its other contracts. For teams negotiating compute, a cluster is only as real as its power contract. Capacity announced without signed tenants or firm energization dates can disappear, so ask for grid timelines and fallback regions before committing spend.