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Data center campus

Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft)

Nscale Barstow AI Data Center is an AI data center campus developed by Nscale in Texas, Barstow. 0.70 GW of capacity has been announced; none is energized yet. The gap is what this page tracks: what is claimed versus what is actually built, each figure dated and sourced.

Under construction · Nscale · ERCOT · Barstow, Texas, United States

Track Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft)

Capacity: announced vs energized

Under construction
not recorded
Energized
not recorded

Announced-to-energized gap: 0.70 GW. Every figure below is a single dated, sourced claim. Current best per series resolves by evidence tier, then date. See the methodology.

55th-largest announced of 102 tracked campuses49th percentile announced-to-energized gap≈ 567,000 homes of power at full announced capacity (basis)

Promised online: Q3 2026. 0 months away. Claimed by Nscale (reported) (source).

Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft) capacity claims
Source
Announced1.20 GW2026-06-01claimedjournalist report
Announced0.70 GW2025-10-01reportedcompany filing
Contracted0.24 GW2026-06-01reportedjournalist report

Key facts

under construction

Lifecycle

0.70 GW

Announced

0 GW

Energized

Nscale

Developer

United States

Location

ERCOT

Grid

0.70 GW

Announced-to-energized gap

Reported facts

Structured facts sourced from citations already on this record. Each fact traces to a source in the References section below.

IT capacity (announced, platform)
Nscale Oct 15 2025 Microsoft release: approximately 240 MW hyperscale AI campus in Texas delivering ~104,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs to Microsoft from Q3 2026; leased from Ionic Digital with a claimed path to 1.2 GW and Microsoft option on a further 700 MW from late 2027 (Nscale)
Operator / tenant
Nscale as operator supplying Microsoft; site leased from Ionic Digital per Nscale primary (Nscale)
City naming
Registry places this row in Barstow / Ward County from secondary coverage (Tech.eu, DCD). Nscale's Oct 2025 Microsoft release names Texas and Ionic Digital but does not itself say Barstow.
Overlap HOLD
Likely the same campus as nscale-texas-campus (Microsoft / Ionic Digital Texas row). Merge held: Nscale primary still does not publish a single site map proving one vs two Texas campuses; nscale-texas-campus also currently points at an unrelated Corpus Christi location stub that needs steward cleanup before any merge.

On the data center map

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The story of Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft)
Announced capex
$14B
GPUs
104K Approximately 104,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs at the Texas campus
Tenant
Microsoft
Land owner
Ionic Digital
Derived
Cost per MW
$20M/MW

Every figure is one row in the ledger below with its source. Derived rows are pure arithmetic on the rows above (not new claims). Absent lines mean the fact isn't on record yet.

In clusterTexas(606)

The deal

tenant
Microsoft · Offtaker of Nvidia AI capacity
land owner
Ionic Digital · Owner of the Barstow site leased to Nscale
chip supplier
NVIDIA · GB300 GPUs
operator
Nscale · AI infrastructure operator leasing the site

Power

Power source
grid
Grid operator
ERCOT
Interconnection

The Texas (ERCOT) grid demand right now: 57.2 GW (EIA-930, 2026-10-03 16:00). Nscale Barstow AI Data Center's announced 0.70 GW would be 1.2% of the grid's current load.

County water status: Extreme drought (D3) in Ward County, week of 2026-09-29 (US Drought Monitor). Data centers are large water users for cooling; this is the neutral local water picture.

Why here

Nscale Barstow AI Data Center is in Texas, Barstow. It connects to the ERCOT grid, draws on grid power. This siting summary is composed from the record's held fields, not speculation; see methodology.

Financial structure

Nscale-Microsoft AI compute contract (up to)
up to $14B. Contract value stated up to ~$14B; not campus construction cost journalist report

Regulatory paper trail

The filings and rules on record for this site and its jurisdiction, most recent first. Each is a sourced, dated artifact you can follow to the primary document.

Investment, workforce and specs

GPUs
Approximately 104,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs at the Texas campus source

Estimated compute: the claimed Approximately 104,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs at the Texas campus chips are on the order of 90x the compute used to train a GPT-4-class model. Derived from the chip-count claim, not measured (basis).

Timeline

  2. Aug 2026
    party linked
    operator: linked externalName "Nscale" to company nscale
  3. Oct 2026
    Current: Under construction

Sources

8816a42d-177f-434d-9475-db84f39e535c · Tracked with DEPLOY's verified-vs-claimed methodology. Every term is defined in the glossary. Announced numbers are claims, not built capacity.

Head-to-head

Nscale Barstow AI Data Center vs Stargate Norway →Nscale Barstow AI Data Center vs BT-owned UK sites →Nscale Barstow AI Data Center vs Microsoft La Porte Data Center Campus →Nscale Barstow AI Data Center vs Nscale Loughton AI Campus →Nscale Barstow AI Data Center vs Monarch Compute Campus →

Common questions

What is Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft)?
Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft) is an AI data center campus tracked on the DEPLOY registry, located in Barstow. DEPLOY records its capacity as a dated, sourced ledger: announced gigawatts versus actually energized gigawatts, never a press-release total.
How much power will Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft) use?
Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft) has 0.70 GW of announced capacity on the DEPLOY registry; no energized capacity is yet recorded. Each figure is individually dated and sourced.
Who is building Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft)?
Nscale is recorded as a party to Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft) on the DEPLOY registry. The full party list, with each role, is on the record.
Is Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft) operating yet?
As of the most recent verification on the DEPLOY registry, Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft) is under construction. DEPLOY tracks the lifecycle from announced through energized, so the current state reflects sourced evidence, not the original announcement.
How verified is the data on Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft)?
A human editor has reviewed this record for the indexed registry. Every capacity figure is an append-only, dated claim resolved to the highest-evidence tier; superseded claims are kept but excluded from the current view.

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Track Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft) on Deploy.

We notify you when energized capacity, lifecycle state, or a new dated capacity claim changes against primary-source evidence, not when the developer issues a press release.

Cite this page

DEPLOY. (2026). Nscale Barstow AI Data Center (Microsoft): AI data center campus record. Retrieved October 4, 2026, from https://registry.deploy.report/datacenters/nscale-barstow-texas

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The verified data on this page is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license: reuse the facts freely, with attribution to DEPLOY (deploy.report). The prose, design, and any imagery are not included and keep their own rights.

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