AI data-center startup Nscale is heading for an IPO built around a huge Anthropic contract, and that looks like bad news for anyone thinking of buying the stock.

• Nscale is pitching investors on a $45 billion deal to supply computing power to Anthropic.
• Its financials are not clean, so investors can't easily verify what they're buying.
• It has no clear plan for actually building and installing the computing capacity it has promised to sell.
• The gap between the headline contract and the ability to deliver is the core problem.

Outlook: Expect scrutiny of the IPO to grow, and the stock to be treated as high-risk until Nscale shows it can deliver the compute it sold.