SpaceX transforms into "AI computing power landlord"! In the next three years, it will harvest $45 billion from Anthropic.

According to a securities filing, the artificial intelligence (AI) startup company Anthropic has agreed to pay nearly $45 billion to Elon Musk's commercial space giant SpaceX over the next three years to access computing resources. According to disclosures in SpaceX's IPO-related filing on Wednesday, Anthropic is expected to pay SpaceX $1.25 billion per month until May 2029. However, initial costs will be reduced as computing capabilities increase in May and June 2026. The document states that either party can terminate the agreement with a 90-day notice. Earlier this month, Anthropic announced that it had signed an agreement to access over 300 megawatts of computing power from SpaceX's large data center, Colossus 1, located in Memphis, but specific terms were not disclosed at the time. Subsequently, according to a post by Anthropic's co-founder and Chief Computing Officer Tom Brown, the collaboration has expanded to include computing resources from another SpaceX data center. It is worth noting that before this agreement was reached, Musk criticized Anthropic for alleged conflicts with the U.S. government after merging SpaceX with his AI startup xAI earlier this year. Musk had claimed that Anthropic was destined to become the opposite of its name, "misanthropic," and questioned if there was a more hypocritical company than Anthropic. However, Musk's attitude has since changed. He posted on X platform that he had spent a lot of time engaging with the senior leadership of Anthropic and was impressed by them. Musk stated, "Everyone I met is very capable and very concerned about doing the right thing. Nobody triggered my 'evil detector'. As long as they continue to engage in critical self-reflection, Claude could turn out well." The collaboration agreement reached between Anthropic and SpaceX is the latest move by the company to acquire computing resources to meet its needs. Previously, Anthropic had committed to pay approximately $200 billion to Alphabet Inc. Class C over the next five years for cloud computing expenses related to training and deploying Claude. This investment reflects multiple previous agreements reached between Anthropic and Alphabet Inc. Class C. Last October, Anthropic announced an expanded usage of Alphabet Inc. Class C's cloud TPU chips, with Alphabet Inc. Class C providing over 1 gigawatt of computing power to Anthropic, to be operational this year. Last month, Anthropic entered into a new partnership with Alphabet Inc. Class C and Broadcom Inc. to access around 3.5 gigawatts of TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) computing power resources, expected to be launched from 2027 onwards. This collaboration links two major competitors in the AI race, both striving to develop more advanced AI systems. For Anthropic, this collaboration means being able to access much-needed computing resources to support the increasing demand from its customers who are using its tools to simplify programming and other tasks. After completing the merger with Musk's xAI earlier this year, SpaceX has been working to increase its AI business revenue, including selling infrastructure access. SpaceX stated in regulatory filings on Wednesday that the company expects to sign similar computing partnership agreements with other enterprises in the future. In addition to Anthropic, xAI recently reached a partnership agreement with the programming tool startup company Cursor last month, providing it with large-scale computing support. This cooperation between xAI, Anthropic, and Cursor means that xAI is starting to offer its internally built large-scale computing resources externally, expanding from a single-model development company to a role as a "computing service provider," potentially becoming an alternative choice for mega-scale cloud service providers like Microsoft Corporation, Alphabet Inc. Class C, as well as new cloud service providers like CoreWeave and Nebius. For xAI, externally renting computing power can help alleviate the high costs of data center construction and operation, as well as strengthen its connection with the developer ecosystem. This is expected to increase xAI's sources of income and alleviate some investor concerns during SpaceX's IPO process. It is reported that the completion of the acquisition of xAI before the IPO is the most controversial variable in this listing. As a newcomer in the large model track, xAI is in a period of high-intensity research and development investment, with monthly operating losses exceeding $300 million and net losses surpassing $4 billion in 2025, with no short-term profitability in sight. The market generally worries that after this acquisition, xAI's huge spending will be included in SpaceX's financial statements, diluting Starlink's profitability, and even leading to a situation where a public company foots the bill for Musk's personal entrepreneurial projects, harming the interests of public shareholders, which is one of the biggest uncertainties of SpaceX's IPO.