Early 2027 was the delivery date. The grid operator’s answer, according to the Guardian following the Financial Times, was the early to mid 2030s. That gap is most of the story of Microsoft reportedly walking away from Nscale’s planned data center in Loughton, Essex, and I’d rather start there than with the logos.

The plan was 23,040 Nvidia chips and 50 MW of capacity for Azure. UK Power Networks reportedly told Nscale that enough capacity might not exist for roughly another decade. Microsoft declined to comment, so the reason remains unstated; one Korean business paper notes the cause of the cancellation is unconfirmed and that grid delays are the likely culprit. Nscale says it remains committed to the project, is looking at alternative power and other sites, that its Microsoft relationship is strong, and that the London grid constraint won’t touch its other contracts. I can’t check any of that.

A decade is not a delay. It is a different project.

CoinDesk describes Nscale as an offshoot of bitcoin mining, which sent me back to the $9.8 billion lease a bitcoin miner signed in July. The same CoinDesk piece quotes CoinShares: across the miners it tracks, more than 4 GW of AI capacity is under contract, and about 550 MW is billing customers. Backlogs top $100 billion while annualized AI revenue is just over $1 billion. Do the division and fewer than one watt in seven of contracted capacity is earning anything, and I keep rereading that because the contracts are what get announced and the connection dates are what get quietly pushed.

Britain’s queue is the backdrop. Ofgem says data center projects have asked for about 73 GW of connections and is weighing tougher rules, because some applicants may never build and they hold up projects that are ready to go. The reporting doesn’t tell me whether Loughton was one of the ready ones, and I’d be guessing if I said it was.

Nscale also filed for a US IPO last month, and its listing documents name Microsoft and Anthropic as key clients, according to Chosun Biz. Microsoft is one of its two biggest. The FT, relayed by Benzinga, adds that Nscale faces potential penalties if it misses delivery deadlines, and that Anthropic could exit a $45 billion agreement tied to Nscale’s West Virginia project if financing or delivery milestones slip. Different site, same pressure, and it sits close to what I wrote about Anthropic’s reported offer to Blackstone on chip debt on Friday.

New York put its line at 50 MW in its data center moratorium. A 50 MW site in Essex can’t get connected at all. In July I argued that Europe can order the chips but cannot plug them in, and I didn’t expect a British example to arrive this neatly.

Sources