Ex-Coal Miner Josh Payne Now Builds AI Data Centers
Nscale founder went from Australian mines to launching a data center company in London during the AI boom.
Josh Payne dropped out of high school in an industrial part of Australia and went to work in coal mines. Now he's running Nscale, a data center developer he founded in London in 2024.
The timing wasn't accidental. The AI boom created insatiable demand for computing infrastructure, and Payne saw the opportunity. Data centers — the physical backbone of every large language model and AI service — became the hottest real estate play in tech.
Payne's path from mining to tech infrastructure is unusual, but the underlying logic tracks. Both industries are about extracting value from massive physical operations. Coal mines and data centers both demand scale, logistics, and serious capital.
Nscale is betting that the AI infrastructure buildout is still in its early innings. With hyperscalers and AI startups alike scrambling for GPU capacity, the company is positioning itself to meet that demand head-on.