AI infrastructure startup Nscale is doubling down on its new Seattle-area presence before even opening the doors.
After initially leasing a single floor at The Eight tower in downtown Bellevue earlier this year, the London-based company has expanded by an additional floor, bringing its total footprint in the new development to approximately 46,000 rentable square feet, according to a report from The Broderick Group.
The expansion signals an aggressive ramp-up for Nscale’s primary U.S. engineering hub, slated to open in January 2027. While the initial 24,000-square-foot lease was pegged to accommodate up to 250 employees, the added space gives the fast-growing cloud provider room to scale its local team even further beyond its current 50 Seattle-area workers.
Founded in 2024, Nscale is riding a massive wave of capital and growth.
It raised a $2 billion Series C round at a $14.6 billion valuation earlier this year, backed by Nvidia, Dell, Citadel, Jane Street, and Point72, alongside a $900 million credit line.
The company also earlier this year hired Nidhi Chappell, the former Microsoft corporate vice president who led Azure AI and high-performance computing infrastructure, including the supercomputers that power ChatGPT. As Nscale’s new president of AI infrastructure, based in the Seattle area, Chappell will oversee the company’s global engineering and data center operations.
“I’ve had a front-row seat to some of the biggest moments in AI over the past several years, but one thing has always stood out: the world remembers the breakthroughs, but it’s the people building the infrastructure behind the scenes who make them possible,” Chappell wrote in a LinkedIn post earlier this year announcing the company’s first “onboarding” event in Seattle.
Nscale’s new office is set to open in January, with the second floor slated to open in June, reports The Puget Sound Business Journal.
The company’s growth underscores Bellevue’s growing magnetism for out-of-town AI players. The company joins a dense ecosystem of AI infrastructure and application hubs establishing outposts on the Eastside, including xAI, OpenAI, Databricks, CoreWeave, Armada, and Anduril.
