Figure and Nscale commit up to 100,000 Vera Rubin GPUs to physical AI

Summary

The partnership targets up to 100,000 NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs for training and deploying Figure’s Helix robotics models, with initial systems planned for the second half of 2027 in Barstow, Texas. Nscale will become Figure’s preferred compute provider and a shareholder, but the multiyear commitment is capacity value rather than an upfront payment.

Why it matters

Humanoid robotics is becoming a frontier-compute problem: data, simulation and model training now demand infrastructure commitments measured against AI-cloud scale. The deal is also a concrete test of whether physical AI companies can finance and operationalise the same compute flywheel used by frontier model labs.

Related coverage

• Lyte raises $165M to put custom sensing silicon inside physical AI
• Uber and Wayve begin supervised autonomous passenger rides in London
• Antioch raises $32M to make simulation the scalable data engine for robot training

Sources

• AI cloud firm Nscale commits compute worth $3.5 billion for Figure’s robotics ambitions
• Figure and Nscale Sign Strategic Partnership
• Nscale and Figure partnership