LONDON — Microsoft has walked away from a planned AI data center at Loughton, Essex, Gizmodo and CoinDesk reported on Monday. The British government billed the site in September 2025 as home to the country’s largest supercomputer.
The site belongs to Nscale, the London-based AI cloud company whose New York IPO filing TEH reported in September. Gizmodo, citing the Telegraph, said Microsoft was the key client at Loughton, renting capacity on 23,000 Nvidia chips. In a statement Gizmodo quoted, Microsoft said it remains committed to its partnership with Nscale and that “This decision relates to a single site.”
Nscale says its other Microsoft contracts remain in place, CoinDesk reported. They are large. The company’s registration statement lists Microsoft statements of work worth up to about $43.8 billion through December 2033, payable as Nscale meets delivery and availability requirements. Microsoft’s statement confines the decision to a single site, a distinction that matters against the wider data center expansion TEH covered in September.
The stated obstacle is power. CoinDesk reported, summarizing earlier press accounts, that the site was meant to supply 50 megawatts to Microsoft’s Azure cloud by early 2027 and that UK Power Networks, the local grid operator, told Nscale enough capacity may not be available until the early-to-mid 2030s. Gizmodo said the facility was not expected online until 2030 or later, and that the exact reason for Microsoft’s exit is not known.
Nscale’s S-1, filed with the SEC on September 18, describes the exposure without naming the site. It lists grid connection delays among construction risks, says some customer contracts let the customer terminate for delays on varying notice, and describes the Microsoft statements of work as terminable for cause on 60 days’ notice of a breach. TEH searched the filing’s full text and found no mention of Loughton or Essex.
The filing also says OpenAI withdrew from the Stargate UK partnership in April. The government’s September 2025 announcement named OpenAI and Microsoft as Nscale’s partners, so each has now stepped back from a British project. Power has held up AI builders elsewhere: Oracle sent a force majeure notice over its Stargate New Mexico campus in September, TEH reported, as pipeline permits slipped.
By TEH’s arithmetic, $43.8 billion is no more than about 43 percent of the more than $103 billion in total contracted value Nscale cited in its September 25 financing release. The Telegraph, via Gizmodo, put Microsoft at 40 percent of contracted revenue. The two measures rest on different bases, and the filing does not say how much of the Microsoft total was tied to Loughton.
Neither company has publicly said which statement of work covered Loughton or on what ground it ended. Nscale’s newsroom, whose latest item is dated October 6, carried nothing on it on Monday morning.
