Anthropic Signs Up to $45 Billion Compute Lease With SpaceX/xAI
Anthropic signed an agreement to lease computing capacity from SpaceX/xAI’s Colossus data centers for a reported maximum value of up to $45 billion, with payments described at about $1.25 billion per month through May 2029. The arrangement covers more than 300 megawatts and roughly 220,000 Nvidia GPUs; either party can terminate on 90 days’ notice, so the headline value is not a guaranteed payment. The agreement followed strong Claude demand and a resulting capacity crunch.
This is a concrete, forward-looking commercial commitment rather than price commentary: Anthropic secured large-scale compute from SpaceX/xAI, with reported maximum consideration of up to $45 billion and multi-year capacity implications. The October 10 WSJ newsletter is a recap, so it is not used as the occurrence date; a contemporaneous May 6 report says Anthropic announced the signed agreement, while later filing reports corroborate the payment, capacity, and termination terms. The $45 billion figure is a ceiling rather than guaranteed revenue because either party can terminate on 90 days’ notice, supporting high but not maximal importance and surprise scores. Commercial_agreement is the most specific development type. Confidence is high on the core deal and parties, while the exact intraday occurrence time and legal allocation between SpaceX and xAI are less certain. The direct counterparties and NVIDIA are approved because they are explicitly tied to the agreement; indirect suppliers, cloud competitors, and financing beneficiaries are excluded.
Weeks later, Anthropic said it reached an agreement worth up to $45 billion to lease computing power from Musk’s (SpaceX.).
With demand outstripping supply and prices rising, tech companies are striking deals with rivals, while venture-capital firms are helping startups obtain computing capacity.