AI cloud provider Nscale signed a multi-year partnership with US robot maker Figure on 3 September. The deal covers an initial $3.5 billion in compute and is intended to scale beyond $6 billion. Nscale is also becoming a shareholder in Figure.
Up to 100,000 GPUs on Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform
The plan calls for deploying up to 100,000 Nvidia GPUs on the new Vera Rubin platform. The first data centre is targeted to come online in the second half of 2027 in Barstow, California. Nscale supplies the power, compute platform and orchestration layer, while Nvidia contributes the underlying infrastructure. For Nvidia, reports frame the agreement as another multi-billion-dollar order in the emerging field of physical AI.
The compute appetite of the Helix models
San Jose-based Figure builds general-purpose humanoid robots for industry and the home. Their AI control stack, the Helix models, becomes more capable with more data and compute, according to the company. Founder and CEO Brett Adcock named exactly those two factors as the biggest constraint on his goal of bringing humanoid robots into every home.
Nscale CEO Josh Payne called physical intelligence AI’s next frontier. The two sides also plan to explore whether humanoids could eventually help scale Nscale’s own supply chain. Neither company disclosed the size of Nscale’s stake in Figure.
Sources: Nscale · Bloomberg · PR Newswire
