Anthropic confirmed it will pay SpaceX approximately $1.25 billion per month for access to Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) compute capacity through May 2029, a commitment disclosed in SpaceX's S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and confirmed by an Anthropic spokesperson.
Deal Structure
<cite index="2-1,2-2">Anthropic is paying SpaceX $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 as part of the compute deal the companies signed earlier this month.</cite> <cite index="2-5,2-6,2-7">The two companies announced the deal last month but did not initially provide financial details; SpaceX announced the monthly payments as part of its filing for an initial public offering, and said the payments would be reduced for May and June as the deal ramps up.</cite>
<cite index="5-5,5-6,5-7,5-8">The contract covers access to the Colossus and Colossus II data centers, with a discounted rate for May and June. Over its full term, the contract could deliver up to $45 billion in revenue to SpaceX, at a rate of approximately $15 billion per year. Either party can terminate with 90 days' notice, and Anthropic retains ownership of its AI models and data.</cite>
<cite index="5-10,5-11,5-12">Anthropic simultaneously announced it was expanding beyond Colossus 1, near Memphis, Tennessee, to Colossus 2 as well, scaling up Nvidia GB200 capacity throughout June. The two data centers together hold more than one gigawatt of computing power, originally built to run xAI's Grok chatbot. SpaceX signed Cloud Services Agreements with Anthropic in May 2026 for access to both facilities.</cite>
Scale and Counterparty Context
The facilities were originally constructed for Elon Musk's xAI unit. <cite index="4-7,4-8">SpaceX originally constructed these facilities for xAI, the unit responsible for the Grok AI chatbot, and Musk recently noted his company did not require the entirety of this computing capacity.</cite> <cite index="6-14">SpaceX wrote in its filing that the arrangement "allows us to monetize unused compute capacity in our infrastructure."</cite>
<cite index="7-12,7-13,7-14">Anthropic's recent compute deals with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and SpaceX point to a broader effort to lock in enough infrastructure for Claude's continued growth. Spreading supply across several partners gives the company more protection if one vendor hits deployment delays, procurement bottlenecks, or local power limits. Multiple supplier relationships also reduce the risk that one constrained facility becomes a single choke point.</cite>
Financial Projections
The disclosure coincides with internal projections shared with investors. <cite index="14-2,14-3,14-4">Anthropic told investors that it expects to generate $10.9 billion in revenue in the second quarter of 2026, more than double the $4.8 billion it reported in Q1, and to post its first-ever operating profit of $559 million. The Wall Street Journal broke the story on May 20, with CNBC and Bloomberg independently confirming the figures. The numbers were shared as part of an ongoing funding round that could value the company above $900 billion, surpassing OpenAI's $852 billion valuation from March.</cite>
<cite index="15-6,15-7">Even though chances are high that it will reach profitability for the quarter, Anthropic does not expect to be profitable in the quarters that follow, as the company plans to spend more on computing and other expenses as it grows operations.</cite> <cite index="14-24,14-25">The two months in which Anthropic is claiming an operating profit happen to coincide with the period in which its largest compute bill is discounted, and Anthropic's own guidance acknowledges the company may not remain profitable through the rest of the year once full compute spending resumes.</cite>
<cite index="11-10,11-11,11-12,11-13">Chief Executive Dario Amodei has cited compute strain as a key constraint, noting the company planned for 10x annual growth but saw 80x, which has driven its difficulties with compute.</cite>