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- Nscale Acquires the Monarch Compute Campus — America’s First State-Certified AI Microgrid with a potential of up to 8GW+ of onsite powered microgrid
- Nscale Signs Letter of Intent with Microsoft for up to 1.35GW of AI Compute using NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 GPUs
- Establishes Nscale Energy & Power, Positions Nscale as Global Flagship Deployment Partner for NVIDIA Vera Rubin Architecture, NVIDIA DSX AI Factory
SAN JOSE, Calif., March 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Nscale has signed a letter of intent with Microsoft to provide 1.35 gigawatts of AI compute capacity, setting up the West Virginia Monarch AI campus as a global flagship deployment of NVIDIA’s next-generation Vera Rubin GPUs as Vera Rubin NVL72 systems engineered with the NVIDIA Vera Rubin DSX AI Factory reference design.
Nscale today also announced the acquisition of American Intelligence & Power Corporation (“AIPCorp”), sponsored by Fidelis New Energy and 8090 Industries, which includes the Monarch Compute Campus, a site with up to 2,250 acres in Mason County, West Virginia, and the United States’ first state-certified AI microgrid with a power runway scalable to over eight gigawatts.
Under the collaboration with Microsoft, Nscale will construct and operate advanced AI data center infrastructure to host this large-scale GPU deployment based on the latest generation NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 GPUs and future technologies. The deployment will be delivered across multiple tranches beginning in late 2027, creating one of the largest dedicated AI compute installations in the world.
The planned infrastructure will operate under a long-term framework that includes an initial multi-year compute services term alongside a long-term data centre lease structure, reflecting the scale and strategic importance of the facility. This positions the campus to be a cornerstone facility for next-generation AI training and inference capacity in the United States.
“This collaboration with Microsoft marks a pivotal milestone both for Nscale and the development of the Monarch Campus,” said Josh Payne, CEO of Nscale. “By integrating our specialized AI infrastructure with Microsoft’s global platform, we are creating a foundation for innovation that can scale alongside the most ambitious AI models in the world”.
This acquisition and collaboration comes at a crucial moment. AI is forecast to drive a sharp increase in global data center demand, but estimates suggest existing supply is constrained by the pace at which power and new capacity can be brought online. McKinsey estimates AI-related data center capacity demand could reach 156 GW by 2030. The Monarch Compute Campus will build on Nscale’s current capacity of over 1GW.
The expansion capabilities of this site — which has the potential for a total power draw of 8GW — will allow Nscale to develop power capacity rapidly while supporting one of the largest announced AI compute deployments in the market today.
The campus is also expected to provide high-speed fiber connectivity to some of the nation’s largest AI hubs. Its close proximity to major centers of AI and cloud infrastructure, including Ashburn and Chicago, will offer customers low latency and minimal delays for AI workloads.
“Microsoft’s datacenter approach is to build the best global infrastructure informed by near-term and long-term demand,” said Jon Tinter, President, Business Development and Ventures at Microsoft. “Our investments blend owned datacenters, leased facilities, and strategic collaborations. This collaboration with Nscale and NVIDIA is an important step to deliver meaningful AI innovation to our customers.”
“AI is becoming essential infrastructure for every industry,” said Nico Caprez, Vice President, Global AI Infrastructure Growth, NVIDIA. “With this large-scale NVIDIA DSX AI Factory Blueprint, Nscale is building the infrastructure required to produce intelligence at industrial scale and power the next wave of global innovation.”
Power collaboration with Caterpillar
Through a strategic collaboration with Caterpillar, Nscale will deploy Caterpillar G3500 series natural gas generator sets at sufficient scale to achieve two gigawatts of power generation by the first half of 2028, powering the NVIDIA Vera Rubin DSX AI Factory reference design.
“This collaboration reflects Caterpillar and our dealers’ continued focus on supporting customers that require primary, continuous-duty power at scale through our broad energy solutions portfolio,” said Melissa Busen, senior vice president of Electric Power, Caterpillar. “Projects like Monarch demonstrate how Caterpillar’s natural gas generation platforms are being deployed as core infrastructure for data centers and other power intensive applications where reliability, speed of deployment, and lifecycle performance are critical.”
The G3500 series units provide Nscale with a proven, rapid-deployment power solution that collapses traditional infrastructure timelines and accelerates the path from site to live compute.
Providing positive community impact
Nscale is working closely with state and local officials and community partners to ensure the development delivers lasting value for the region. The campus is being designed with local and environmental resources in mind. Power will be generated on-site as the facility operates independently of the local grid, eliminating the burden on existing utility customers and protecting ratepayers’ bills. The microgrid is also designed to enable future tie-in to the grid for export of power back to the grid.
Nscale is also pursuing carbon sequestration to offset emissions, with access to significant sequestration capacity in West Virginia. Even at full 8GW capacity, the campus will use a high-efficiency design that consumes less water with no impact on municipal water supply or residential users.
About Nscale
Nscale is building the global hyperscaler engineered for AI infrastructure. Through vertically integrated AI solutions and modular, first-principles datacenter design across Europe and North America, Nscale delivers the compute foundation for enterprise AI training, fine-tuning, and inference at scale.
Media Contact: press@nscale.com
