Figure signs Nscale deal for up to 100,000 Vera Rubin GPUs to train Helix
Figure said on 3 September 2026 that Nscale will deploy up to 100,000 NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs for it, with a $3.5 billion initial compute commitment.
By Emre AlemdarPublished
Tech AI LatestHumanoid robot maker Figure announced on 3 September 2026 a partnership with Nscale to deploy up to 100,000 GPUs on the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform for training its Helix model. The initial commitment is $3.5 billion in compute, with intent to scale past $6 billion. Deployment is targeted to start in the second half of 2027 in Barstow, Texas. Nscale is also making a strategic investment in Figure.
Key facts
- Announced: 3 September 2026 (Figure)
- Scale: up to 100,000 GPUs on the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform
- Value: $3.5 billion initial compute commitment, with intent to scale to over $6 billion
- Timing: initial deployment targeted to start in the second half of 2027
- Site: Barstow, Texas, the only location named
- Nscale makes a strategic investment in Figure; size not stated
What Figure and Nscale announced
Figure announced on 3 September 2026 that Nscale will deploy up to 100,000 GPUs on the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform for it. The initial commitment is $3.5 billion in compute, and the companies state an intent to scale it to more than $6 billion. Initial deployment is targeted to begin in the second half of 2027. Barstow, Texas is the only site named.
Nscale is also making a strategic investment in Figure, and the two companies will explore scaling Nscale's supply chain with humanoid robots. The size of the investment, the contract length and the payment schedule are not stated in the announcement.
Why a robot company needs a GPU cluster
Figure says it is largely constrained by data and compute for training Helix, its AI model for humanoid robots. A week earlier it introduced Index, a project to build a humanoid training dataset that it says generates 35 minutes of human experience data every second. The Nscale capacity is meant to train the next generation of Helix on that data.
Founder and CEO Brett Adcock is quoted saying Helix "becomes more capable the same way every learned system does: with more data and compute." NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang describes the workflow: models trained on Vera Rubin through Nscale's AI cloud, validated in NVIDIA Isaac Sim, and deployed on NVIDIA GPUs inside Figure's robots. Josh Payne, Nscale's founder and CEO, is also quoted.
What changed for AI infrastructure buyers
Large GPU reservations have so far come mostly from model labs and cloud providers. A $3.5 billion commitment from a humanoid robot company shows a physical AI developer buying training compute in the billions of dollars. It also adds a buyer outside the hyperscalers to the Vera Rubin order book, almost two months before Vera Rubin became generally available on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
The figure of 100,000 GPUs is a maximum. The release does not say how many will be deployed in the first phase, how much power the Barstow site will draw, or how the $3.5 billion and $6 billion figures will be phased.
What to watch next
The next milestones are site construction in Barstow and the start of deployment in the second half of 2027. Open questions include the size of the first phase, the size of Nscale's stake in Figure, and how humanoid robots would work in Nscale's supply chain, which the companies only say they will explore. Figure's Helix 2.5 results, published two weeks later, show what the company is training today. More compute deals are covered under AI Chips & Infrastructure.
What changed
| Before | Figure trained Helix on compute it did not describe publicly and had no named large-scale GPU partner |
|---|---|
| After | Figure has a $3.5 billion initial compute commitment with Nscale for up to 100,000 Vera Rubin GPUs from the second half of 2027 |
| Who it affects | Figure's model training roadmap, Nscale's Texas buildout, and NVIDIA's Vera Rubin customer base |
Questions people ask
- How many GPUs is Nscale deploying for Figure?
- Up to 100,000 GPUs on the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform, according to Figure's 3 September 2026 announcement.
- How much is the Figure and Nscale deal worth?
- Figure describes an initial commitment of $3.5 billion in compute, with intent to scale to over $6 billion. Payment terms are not stated.
- Where will the GPUs be located?
- Barstow, Texas is the only site named in the announcement.
Sources
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