Nscale backs Figure with $3.5B AI cloud deal as humanoid robotics race accelerates
Tech Funding News Abhinaya Prabhu ● Covered by 3 sources
Nscale is putting at least $3.5B of AI cloud into Figure, with the deal able to grow past $6B. It’s a huge bet on humanoid robots needing massive compute before they can do real work.
Based on reporting by Tech Funding News, Abhinaya Prabhu — read the original for the full story.
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Nscale has signed up to supply Figure with at least $3.5 billion in AI cloud compute, and the agreement can expand beyond $6 billion. The London-based infrastructure company is also taking an undisclosed equity stake, which makes it Figure’s preferred compute provider. That’s a big vote of confidence in a company that’s still selling the promise of humanoid robots more than the robots themselves.
The setup is straightforward, at least on paper. Nscale handles compute and orchestration. NVIDIA provides the hardware underneath. Figure builds the models and the machines on top. Up to 100,000 NVIDIA GPUs are reserved for the partnership, with the first systems planned for the second half of 2027 at Nscale’s Barstow, Texas site.
Figure says it needs that kind of muscle. The company’s Helix model is built to improve with more data and more compute, and Brett Adcock says the new deal gives Figure the infrastructure to push that vision forward. Nscale’s Josh Payne framed it the same way, calling the partnership part of a future for AI robotics. NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang went further, describing the arrangement as a robotics flywheel: train in Nscale’s AI cloud, validate in NVIDIA Isaac Sim, then deploy on NVIDIA GPUs inside Figure’s robots.
The money side is just as striking. Nscale closed a $2 billion Series C in March at a $14.6 billion valuation, and weeks before this deal it also raised roughly $3 billion in debt to build GPU campuses in Texas and North Carolina. It has told prospective investors it has about $51 billion in contracted revenue as it prepares for a possible US IPO. Figure, meanwhile, closed a Series C above $1 billion at a $39 billion valuation in September 2025, after a $675 million Series B in 2024.
This is not a one-off splash. Figure says its Index initiative is processing 30 minutes of human training video every second, and the broader humanoid robotics field has been raising fast. So far in 2026, startups in the sector have brought in $8.6 billion, already 1.8 times all of 2025. The real test is whether all this compute buys working robots, or just a very expensive demo reel.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is what AI hype looks like once it gets a warehouse badge and a factory floor. The industry has moved from “who has the best model” to “who can afford the most compute to keep the story going,” which is a wonderfully efficient way to make everyone else pay for the dream. The circular money flow is the part to watch, because Wall Street never stays cheerful forever when customers are also investors and the invoice starts looking like a dare.
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