UK-based neocloud Nscale disclosed in its U.S. IPO filing that a ByteDance subsidiary called Spring (SG) Pte Ltd was its largest customer in 2025. Spring paid $24 million of Nscale's $33 million annual revenue and, through that contract, gained access to 2,304 Nvidia B200 chips at Nscale's data center in Glomfjord, Norway. The arrangement was not mentioned in the S-1 itself but appeared in a supporting $105 million loan agreement with Macquarie.
According to the Financial Times, the deal was legal and took advantage of loopholes in U.S. export controls that restrict Chinese access to advanced AI accelerators. Macquarie required Nscale to monitor Spring's usage of the chips and report any unusual compute patterns or configurations that could breach U.S. rules. Nscale also hired a third party to conduct due diligence on ByteDance and Spring.
Nvidia took notice after Nscale drew the first tranche of the loan. A month later, Nscale closed a deal with Microsoft and Nvidia, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang committing over $660 million. Nvidia has since increased its commitments to over $2 billion, plus an $860 million guarantee on Nscale's lease at a Texas facility. Nscale has also signed larger deals with Microsoft ($44 billion) and Anthropic ($45 billion), which the company says will reduce Spring's share of revenue to below 20%.
Chinese firms have used such loopholes to rent advanced chips abroad or buy them through foreign subsidiaries. The U.S. has already closed the subsidiary-purchase route, and the Trump administration is working to close the rental route. Whether those moves will affect the Spring-Nscale deal remains unclear.