Microsoft just left a smoldering crater in the world of British cloud computing by pulling out of a giant deal with the U.K.-based firm Nscale right before it was meant to IPO.

According to reporting by the Telegraph, Nscale’s expected valuation following its Wall Street debut was $35 billion. The Telegraph says a new facility at Loughton, Essex would have boasted Microsoft as its key client, renting the use of 23,000 Nvidia chips. The facility’s completion has apparently been plagued by delays, and it wasn’t expected to be online until 2030 or later.

For the record, all of Nscale’s chips weren’t in the Essex basket. In fact, according to Datacenters.com, Nscale has three U.S. facilities.

Nonetheless, the Telegraph says Microsoft accounts for 40% of the revenue currently contracted to Nscale, and that it’s one of the company’s two largest clients.

While it’s not known exactly when Nscale was planning to go public, late last month it announced $3.36 billion in financing, structured as a pre-IPO convertible note—a type of money injection specifically for companies looking to go public in the near future.

The exact reasoning for Microsoft’s pullout is also not known. However, financing in the AI world is increasingly jittery. According to an Oct. 10 story from the Financial Times, global AI debt issuance dropped from $113 billion in June to $23 billion in September.

A Microsoft spokesperson provided the following statement: “We remain committed to our partnership with Nscale, including work to build robust digital infrastructure and support AI growth globally.

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