AIBRIEF
The UK AI infrastructure firm is buying Anyscale, the startup behind the open source Ray framework, to control the software layer that schedules AI workloads on its GPUs.
Nscale is acquiring Anyscale for $1.65 billion, per Bloomberg citing an anonymous source. The deal hands the UK AI infrastructure firm — one of a crop of "neoclouds" renting GPU capacity — the software layer that decides which model runs where.
Anyscale is built on Ray, an open-source framework for distributing computation across machines. It sells tools for serving large language models, training, data curation, inference, and reinforcement learning. The startup was founded by the team behind Project Ray and pivoted to AI after GPT-3's release in 2022.
The companies framed the deal as vertical integration. Anyscale said it and Nscale "can co-design the software layer and infrastructure beneath it, something that neither company could do as effectively by optimizing its layer alone." Nscale's existing footprint already covers power, data centers, and GPU rental; Anyscale adds the orchestration layer on top.
Nscale raised $2 billion in a March 2026 Series C at a $14.6 billion valuation, with Nvidia, Nokia, Blue Owl, Dell, and Aker among the investors. Anyscale's roughly 200 employees will join Nscale, and the Anyscale brand will stay. Anyscale reported revenue up 70% in its most recent quarter versus the prior one, a figure the company disclosed itself; its 2022 Series C valued it at $1.38 billion.
The deal does not yet resolve whether owning Ray-based orchestration translates into pricing power. Open-source Ray can be deployed independently, and competitors are already building on top of it.