Nick Clegg has joined the board of Nscale, a UK developer for artificial intelligence data centres, after the startup raised $2 billion in funding. The Series C round, led by Norwegian energy firm Aker ASA and investment firm 8090 Industries, values the startup at $14.6 billion.
The appointment marks a clear pivot for the former UK deputy prime minister. Clegg stepped down from his position as Meta's president of global affairs just over a year ago, a role that saw him serve as the company's chief policy voice during years of regulatory scrutiny. Where Meta's agenda centered on content moderation debates and political positioning, Nscale's mission is more straightforward: build the computing infrastructure that underpins artificial intelligence development.
Nscale is providing AI infrastructure for OpenAI's AI data centre in Norway, called Stargate Norway, and its UK equivalent, Stargate UK. The company has committed to building a supercomputer in Loughton, Essex, as part of the government's AI infrastructure push. For Clegg, the appeal is transparent: infrastructure investments have tangible value in a way that policy arguments do not.
Clegg, Sandberg and Decker bring different kinds of strategic credibility. Sandberg offers deep experience scaling global technology platforms and managing relationships with the biggest companies in Silicon Valley. Clegg brings political and regulatory expertise at a time when AI infrastructure is rapidly becoming a geopolitical issue, particularly across Europe and the United States.
Yet the move also underscores Clegg's growing scepticism toward some of the industry's most extravagant claims. The former Meta executive has warned that the chance of a market correction in the artificial intelligence sector is "pretty high". He has suggested there are limits to probabilistic AI technology, which means it may not be "quite as all singing and all dancing as people suggest", but it "doesn't mean that technology itself is not going to persist, it's not going to flourish and is not going to have a huge effect".
This pragmatic stance distinguishes Clegg from many of his former colleagues in Silicon Valley. Many high-profile tech chiefs and investors have backed the idea of artificial superintelligence, including SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the latter of which created an AI lab to pursue the technology. Clegg's portfolio tells a different story: he backs the infrastructure that enables AI applications in the near term, rather than betting on speculative technologies that remain decades away.
Clegg's appointment adds significant political and regulatory expertise to the company's leadership. The former UK deputy prime minister spent several years at Meta as president of global affairs, where he oversaw policy, regulation and government relations across the company's global operations. His experience navigating international regulatory frameworks is expected to be particularly valuable as governments around the world grapple with the governance of AI technologies.
For British policymakers, the appointment signals confidence from a seasoned political operator that Nscale's infrastructure agenda aligns with national interest. The expansion of companies such as Nscale forms part of a broader push by the UK government to position the country as a global hub for artificial intelligence research and development. Britain already hosts some of the world's leading AI institutions and companies, including DeepMind and a growing ecosystem of technology start-ups. Large-scale data centre investment is seen as critical to maintaining that competitive advantage.
The question for Clegg is whether backing infrastructure proves more durable than his years spent defending social media platforms. Data centres generate revenue by renting computing power. Unlike Meta's business model, which depends on user engagement and regulatory tolerance, Nscale's value depends on whether hyperscalers continue investing billions in AI compute. It's a bet on the technology's staying power rather than on its transformative potential, which may explain why a former diplomat who once had to apologise for Facebook's missteps now finds the pitch appealing.