Fresh off a $2 billion fundraising and $900 million line of credit, London-based data center startup Nscale is planning a big expansion at a new engineering office in Bellevue, Wash.

Nscale, one of the fastest-growing companies building AI computing infrastructure, recently inked a deal for nearly 24,000 square feet of space at The Eight office tower in downtown Bellevue.

The office is slated to open in January 2027. It will serve as Nscale’s primary engineering hub in the United States, a company spokesperson said. The company currently employs about 50 people in the Seattle area, and the new office will be able to accommodate up to 250 people.

The company earlier this year hired Nidhi Chappell, the former Microsoft corporate vice president who led Azure AI and high-performance computing infrastructure, including the supercomputers that power ChatGPT. As Nscale’s new president of AI infrastructure, based in the Seattle area, Chappell will oversee the company’s global engineering and data center operations.

“I’ve had a front-row seat to some of the biggest moments in AI over the past several years, but one thing has always stood out: the world remembers the breakthroughs, but it’s the people building the infrastructure behind the scenes who make them possible,” Chappell wrote in a LinkedIn post last week announcing the company’s first “onboarding” event in Seattle.

Nscale, which is also preparing to open an office in New York, said it selected Bellevue because of the Seattle region’s concentration of AI infrastructure talent and its proximity to major customers.

Microsoft is one example. Earlier this year, the companies announced an expanded collaboration to deploy Microsoft’s next-generation AI infrastructure across Europe, including large-scale installations of NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs in Norway, Portugal and other locations. Nscale said it would be among the first providers outside of Microsoft to deploy the Vera Rubin platform, supporting Microsoft’s growing AI cloud infrastructure.

The new office is the latest sign of Bellevue’s growing role in the AI economy. The Eastside has become a magnet for companies building AI applications and infrastructure, with xAI, OpenAI, Databricks, CoreWeave, Armada, Anduril and others establishing and expanding offices.

AI companies have been giving a boost to the regional office market overall. Claude maker Anthropic, for example, recently announced an expansion of its offices in Dexter Yard in Seattle.

Nscale was founded in 2024. Its $2 billion funding round earlier this year valued the company at $14.6 billion, believed to be the largest Series C financing ever raised by a European technology company. The capital is being used to expand Nscale’s AI cloud platform, GPU infrastructure and data center footprint across North America and Europe.

Its backers include Astra Capital Management, Citadel, Dell, Jane Street, Lenovo, Linden Advisors, Nokia, NVIDIA and Point72.

News of the Nscale office in Bellevue was first reported by the Puget Sound Business Journal.

Anand Subbaraman is departing as CEO of Icertis, the Bellevue, Wash.-based contract management software company said Friday. Chief Financial Officer Rajat Bahri and longtime executive and Icertis board member Jim Moffatt will serve as interim co-CEOs as Icertis searches for its next CEO.

Subbaraman took the helm in August 2025 when Icertis co-founder Samir Bodas stepped down. Bodas had been the company’s only CEO since launching the business in 2009. Bodas shared at the time that he was resigning due to a health concern, and passed away in January after a battle with cancer. 

Subbaraman, who joined Icertis in 2024 as chief operating officer, will serve as an advisor during the leadership transition. No reason was provided for his exit. We’ve asked the company for further details.

“We are grateful for Anand’s service and his work to expand the company’s AI capabilities and scale operations,” Moffatt said in a statement. “As our Board conducts its search for the next CEO, Rajat and I will ensure we do not miss a beat during this important time for our company.”

Founded in 2009, Icertis has raised more than $500 million and was valued at $5 billion four years ago. Its investors include SoftBank’s Vision Fund, SAP and PSP Partners, the firm chaired by lead independent director Penny Pritzker.

Bloomberg reported in February that Icertis was working with Goldman Sachs to explore a potential sale that could value the company at as much as $5 billion, citing people familiar with the matter. Buyout firms had shown preliminary interest, and no final decision had been reached, according to the report.

The company said Friday that Bahri will hold dual roles as interim co-CEO and CFO. He joined Icertis in 2022 and previously served as CFO at several companies, including ID.me; Wish, where he helped lead the company’s IPO; and Jasper Technologies.

Moffatt has served on the Icertis board since 2022, after previously serving on its advisory board, and is a member of the board’s audit and compensation committees. He has also been appointed chair of the board, in addition to his interim leadership role. Moffatt spent more than 35 years at Deloitte, leaving the company as vice chairman and global CEO of Deloitte Consulting. He is now president of JSM Advisors.

For the first time in several years, there are indications that the worst may be over for the Seattle region’s battered office market — and artificial intelligence companies appear to be playing a leading role.

The regional office market (spanning Seattle, Bellevue and the surrounding Eastside) posted positive net absorption during the second quarter, meaning companies occupied more office space than they vacated, according to a new report from commercial real estate firm JLL. It’s a notable shift after years of downsizing driven by remote work, layoffs and corporate cost-cutting.

Technology companies accounted for 42.5% of all leasing activity during the quarter, easily outpacing every other industry. JLL said AI-related leasing is on track for a strong year as companies establish engineering hubs in the Seattle region to tap its deep talent pool while taking advantage of office costs that remain well below San Francisco and New York.

In fact, leasing by AI companies has accounted for 21.6% of activity in the Seattle and Eastside year to date, and now the entire AI footprint in the region is 855,000 square feet. That’s double the amount in 2024, according to JLL.

The quarter’s largest deals reflected that trend.

• Databricks signed a 142,000-square-foot lease at Four106 in downtown Bellevue, the biggest office transaction of the quarter.
• DocuSign committed to 116,000 square feet at Seattle’s JPMorgan Chase Center.
• Pokémon moved into The Eight office tower in Bellevue, taking 369,800 square feet of space.

The Pokémon deal helped push the region to 372,000 square feet of positive net absorption for the quarter — reversing a run of quarters in which tenants gave back more space than they took.

The numbers offer an encouraging change after years of gloomy office market reports, but they hardly signal a full recovery. Regional vacancy remains elevated at 23.9%, while overall availability sits at 25%.

Companies continue to consolidate space, landlords are still offering concessions, and asking rents remain under pressure as tenants retain significant negotiating leverage, JLL said in the report

Still, there are indications the market’s fundamentals are improving.

Availability has now declined for two consecutive quarters and has fallen from a peak of 26.5% a year ago. At the same time, JLL reports there is currently no new speculative office construction under way — buildings started without tenants committed — meaning even modest growth in demand could have a greater impact on occupancy than in previous years.

Rather than signaling a broad-based office comeback, the latest leasing data suggests a more nuanced story: AI companies and other fast-growing technology firms are helping stabilize a market that had spent years moving in the opposite direction.

The report reinforces a trend GeekWire has been tracking over the past year as AI companies expand their presence across the Seattle region. Alongside Microsoft and Amazon, companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Armada and Anduril have been building engineering teams in the area, drawn by one of the country’s deepest concentrations of AI and cloud computing talent.

Whether that momentum continues will depend on how quickly AI hiring expands and whether more companies decide they need additional space for a new generation of engineers. But after several years defined by shrinking footprints and empty offices, the second quarter offered the first meaningful indication that Seattle’s office market may finally be finding its footing.

Add another name to Bellevue’s growing list of AI tenants.

Taiwan-based eNeural Technologies is setting up its North American headquarters in the city, joining a wave of AI companies — from CoreWeave to xAI to OpenAI — that have staked out office space east of Seattle over the past year.

eNeural plans to invest $3.5 million in the Seattle region over the next three years and create about 30 jobs, more than 20 of them AI engineering positions, according to Greater Seattle Partners, the regional economic development group that announced the expansion.

The company said it eventually envisions its Bellevue office growing into a core edge AI research and development center with more than 500 employees over the next decade.

The company builds lightweight, low-power AI software and chips that let devices — logistics equipment, vehicles, smart city infrastructure — run AI directly on-site rather than relying on the cloud. eNeural says its portfolio spans model optimization tools, self-learning edge platforms, and neural processing unit silicon IP, along with vision-language and large language model tools built for private, secure deployments.

eNeural founder and Chairman Jiun-In Guo called the region “one of the most innovative technology ecosystems in the world” and said establishing an HQ in Bellevue gives the company access to “a unique combination of world-class AI talent, global technology leadership, and proximity to key enterprise customers.”

eNeural’s path to Bellevue ran through Greater Seattle Partners’ SelectUSA Seattle Spinoff program, which introduced the company to the region’s AI and tech ecosystem in 2025.

eNeural’s arrival adds to a run of AI companies moving in alongside tech giants Amazon and Microsoft and staking claims on the Eastside over the past year:

• CoreWeave recently doubled its footprint to 36,000 square feet at One Bellevue Center, expanding its engineering hub with dozens of open roles in the region.
• Elon Musk’s xAI unveiled a 25,000-square-foot office in the former Epic Games space at Lincoln Square South.
• OpenAI moved into a new engineering office at City Center Plaza, a space built for 250 employees with room to grow to as many as 1,400.
• Denver-based Crusoe opened a 7,400-square-foot office in the Key Center building.

Seattle did notch a win of its own this week with the news that Anthropic is leasing 113,000 square feet of space across multiple floors in a South Lake Union development.

The Bellevue office will serve as the eNeural’s primary hub for customer engagement, strategic partnerships, business development, and advanced AI engineering across North America.