Anthropic has struck one of the largest infrastructure agreements yet in the artificial intelligence race, committing to pay more than $40 billion over four years for computing capacity from xAI, according to disclosures contained in SpaceX’s S-1 filing.

The agreement gives Anthropic access to 300 megawatts of compute capacity at xAI’s Colossus 1 data center near Memphis, effectively securing the facility’s entire output. Anthropic will pay approximately $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, although the first two months come at a discounted rate while xAI completes deployment ramp-ups.

The transaction indicates that the economics of artificial intelligence are rapidly shifting from purely model development toward control of power-intensive infrastructure. In the AI industry, access to electricity, advanced chips, and large-scale data centers has increasingly become as strategically important as the models themselves.

For xAI, the agreement offers a massive new revenue stream at a critical moment. Elon Musk’s AI company has spent aggressively building GPU clusters to compete with rivals, including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. But maintaining unused compute infrastructure is extraordinarily expensive, particularly as companies race to deploy hundreds of thousands of Nvidia AI chips.

SpaceX described the arrangement as a way to “monetize unused compute capacity in our infrastructure,” adding in the filing that it expects to pursue “additional similar services contracts.”

The language points to an emerging hybrid strategy in the AI sector. Rather than using infrastructure solely for internal AI development, xAI is increasingly acting like a commercial cloud provider, leasing excess capacity to outside companies when utilization drops below planned levels.

That model has become known in Silicon Valley as the “neocloud” approach, where AI firms attempt to offset the staggering cost of building hyperscale computing clusters by selling spare compute to rivals, startups, or enterprises.

The agreement also reveals how quickly competitive lines are blurring in the AI race. Anthropic and xAI are direct rivals in foundation models and AI assistants, yet Anthropic is now relying on Musk’s infrastructure to expand its own capabilities.

The deal may also signal that xAI built more infrastructure than it currently needs. The company has invested heavily in Colossus, which was promoted as one of the world’s largest AI supercomputing clusters. However, recent reports of slowing usage for xAI’s Grok chatbot suggest parts of that capacity may not have been fully utilized.

xAI can convert idle assets into recurring revenue while preserving its long-term expansion plans by leasing the infrastructure to Anthropic.

The arrangement also reflects mounting financial pressure across the AI industry. Training and operating frontier AI systems now require enormous capital expenditures, forcing companies to search for alternative monetization strategies.

Infrastructure spending across the AI ecosystem has surged dramatically over the past two years. Hyperscalers and AI labs are collectively projected to spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually on data centers, networking equipment, advanced cooling systems, and power procurement.

At the center of the spending boom is Nvidia, whose AI chips remain the industry standard for training large language models. But acquiring GPUs alone is no longer sufficient. Companies now need access to reliable electricity grids, land, fiber connectivity, and advanced cooling systems capable of handling increasingly dense AI clusters.

The scale of the Anthropic-xAI agreement highlights how compute itself is becoming a tradable commodity in the AI economy. The structure also gives both sides flexibility. According to the filing, either company can terminate the arrangement with 90 days’ notice. That clause could prove important in an industry where technological shifts, regulatory changes, and competitive dynamics move rapidly.

For Anthropic, securing long-duration compute access helps reduce dependence on traditional cloud providers while guaranteeing access to scarce infrastructure as demand for AI accelerates. The company has been aggressively expanding capacity in recent months amid rising adoption of its Claude models across enterprise and developer markets.

The deal is expected to strengthen investor confidence ahead of any future public market ambitions. Generating stable, long-term infrastructure revenue may help offset concerns about the profitability and adoption trajectory of Grok and other consumer-facing AI products.

SpaceX has unveiled the clearest picture yet of a sprawling technology empire that has evolved far beyond reusable rockets, as the company prepares for what could become the largest stock market debut in history.

The company’s long-awaited S-1 filing, released after markets closed Wednesday, reveals a business increasingly driven by satellite internet, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and orbital computing ambitions, even as founder Elon Musk continues to frame Mars colonization as the company’s ultimate mission. When SpaceX lists on the Nasdaq later this year under the ticker “SPCX,” it is expected to debut at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion while targeting as much as $75 billion in fresh capital, potentially making it the biggest IPO ever attempted.

The filing lays bare the enormous costs behind Musk’s ambitions. SpaceX generated more than $18 billion in revenue in 2025 but still posted a net loss of about $4.9 billion, extending cumulative losses since inception to more than $37 billion. The document also highlights how aggressively the company is repositioning itself around artificial intelligence and data infrastructure, areas now consuming a substantial portion of its capital spending.

AI Push Deepens Financial Strain

A major focus of the filing is the integration of Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI into the broader SpaceX ecosystem, a move that has dramatically altered the company’s spending profile. According to the filing, roughly 60% of SpaceX’s capital expenditure in 2025, or about $20 billion, was directed toward its AI division, which houses chatbot Grok and related computing infrastructure.

Yet the AI unit remains deeply unprofitable. The division lost billions of dollars last year while revenue growth reached only about 22%, significantly below the growth rates reported by several competing frontier AI firms.

The filing underscores how Musk is increasingly positioning SpaceX not simply as a launch company, but as a vertically integrated infrastructure platform spanning satellites, AI models, cloud computing, and space-based communications. Legal complications tied to the integration of Musk’s artificial intelligence and social media businesses are also becoming more visible. SpaceX disclosed that ongoing legal disputes connected to those consolidations could cost the company approximately $530 million.

Despite the heavy AI spending, Starlink remains the financial backbone of the company.

The satellite internet business generated about $11 billion in revenue in 2025, accounting for more than half of total company sales and reinforcing its importance in funding SpaceX’s broader ambitions. Starlink has become increasingly central to global communications infrastructure, particularly in remote regions, military operations, and emerging markets where traditional broadband deployment remains limited.

Its success has helped transform SpaceX from a capital-intensive aerospace startup into one of the world’s most valuable private companies. Still, the filing makes clear that much of SpaceX’s future remains tied to Starship, the fully reusable heavy-lift rocket that Musk sees as the foundation for both interplanetary travel and a radically cheaper orbital economy.

Starship Remains the Critical Gamble

The company disclosed that its space segment spent $3 billion on Starship research and development in 2025 alone, followed by another $930 million in the first quarter of 2026.

Those investments come after years of technical setbacks, explosions, and redesigns that have repeatedly delayed the rocket’s operational timeline. SpaceX now says it expects Starship to begin payload delivery missions in the second half of 2026, leaving little room for additional delays given the scale of infrastructure projects tied to the rocket’s success.

Assuming the timeline holds, SpaceX plans to begin deploying Starlink satellites via Starship later in 2026, followed by next-generation V2 mobile satellites in 2027.

The company’s ambitions stretch even further. The filing outlines plans to use Starship for Mars exploration, ultra-heavy cargo missions, and orbital AI data centers, an idea that reflects Musk’s broader vision of moving large-scale computing infrastructure into space.

SpaceX argues that Starship could reduce the cost of reaching orbit by more than 99% relative to historical launch costs, potentially reshaping economics across telecommunications, defense, manufacturing, and AI infrastructure. That argument forms a central pillar of the IPO narrative. Investors are not simply being asked to fund a rocket company, but a platform seeking to dominate multiple strategic industries simultaneously.

The filing also confirms the extent of Musk’s control over the company. Musk currently owns 93.6% of SpaceX’s Class B shares, which carry 10 votes each, giving him about 85.1% of total voting power before the IPO. Although that figure is expected to decline after the listing, Musk is still projected to retain majority voting control, allowing SpaceX to avoid certain governance requirements tied to independent board oversight.

The structure mirrors Musk’s broader approach across his companies, where he has consistently maintained outsized control even as outside investors poured in billions of dollars.

The IPO arrives at a pivotal moment when investor demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure companies has surged since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, while governments increasingly view space, semiconductors, and AI as strategically linked sectors.

SpaceX now sits at the intersection of all three.