Wire reporting: (Reuters, via CNA)

Microsoft declined an option that would have more than doubled an existing contract with British AI infrastructure company Nscale to rent computing capacity at a Texas data-center site, according to a Financial Times report summarized Thursday by Techmeme and Channel News Asia^1,2.

Techmeme's item, crediting the FT and unnamed sources, also frames the decision as a setback to Nscale's plans for a $35 billion initial public offering¹.

Channel News Asia's visible FAST summary, carrying a Reuters account of the same FT report, said the newspaper cited people familiar with the matter and described the Texas arrangement as an expansion of an existing compute-rental contract².

CNA's headline called the rejected option a multibillion-dollar AI deal with the U.K. company; the readable summary did not attach a dollar figure of its own beyond that characterization².

The two items agree on the core claim that Microsoft turned down an expansion option rather than, on the text available, canceling the entire existing Texas contract^1,2.

Neither page reproduced the full Financial Times article, and neither visible account included on-record comment from Microsoft or Nscale^1,2.

It is not clear from the two items why Microsoft declined the option, what capacity in megawatts was at stake, whether the existing Texas contract remains in force, or how the decision would affect Nscale's backlog or listing timetable^1,2.

Until the underlying FT reporting or company statements are available on the record, the decision's scale and its effect on Nscale's public-listing plans remain as described by the aggregator and the Reuters-via-CNA summary^1,2.