Nscale Inks $3.5 Billion Compute Deal to Power Figure AI Humanoids
The AI cloud provider becomes a shareholder in Figure, committing massive Nvidia GPU resources to accelerate physical AI.
AI cloud provider Nscale and humanoid robotics developer Figure have signed a multi-year strategic partnership to integrate high-scale computing with robotic hardware. The deal marks a significant infrastructure bet on the transition of artificial intelligence from digital interfaces to physical systems.
Under the terms of the agreement, Nscale will provide an initial compute commitment of $3.5 billion to support Figure's AI development. To meet these computational demands, Nscale intends to deploy up to 100,000 Nvidia GPUs, specifically utilizing the Vera Rubin platform. The first phase of this GPU deployment is scheduled for the second half of 2027 in Barstow, Texas. Beyond providing infrastructure, Nscale has invested in Figure, officially becoming a shareholder and the company's preferred compute provider.
The Surge in Physical AI
This partnership arrives during a period of rapid growth in the robotics sector. According to industry data, North American robot orders reached $622 million in the second quarter of 2026, signaling a broader trend of American business spending on automation. Nscale has positioned itself as an aggressive player in the AI infrastructure market; the company previously secured a $45 billion cloud rental agreement with Anthropic for its data center operations in West Virginia.
Activating the Robotics Flywheel
The collaboration aims to create what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described as a "robotics flywheel." By pairing Nscale's massive compute capacity with Figure's humanoid hardware, the companies intend to accelerate the cycle of training, validating, and deploying AI models directly into physical robots. This integration is designed to shorten the path between theoretical model development and real-world robotic application, potentially speeding up the deployment of humanoid systems across various industries.
Future Outlook
Industry observers will be watching the 2027 rollout in Texas to see if the scale of the Vera Rubin deployment can meet the training requirements of next-generation humanoid models. While the initial $3.5 billion commitment establishes the baseline for the partnership, the long-term success of the venture depends on whether this "flywheel" effect can produce robots capable of complex, autonomous physical labor at scale.