On Wednesday, May 6, Anthropic announced an agreement with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to obtain computing resources from the "Colossus 1" data center for running its AI models. The facility was initially constructed to support xAI’s Grok model.
Under the deal, SpaceX’s Colossus 1 facility in Memphis, Tennessee, which contains more than 220,000 Nvidia processors, will deliver 300 megawatts of new capacity to Anthropic within a month. The agreement represents a major expansion for Anthropic as it scales up its infrastructure to compete with industry rivals such as OpenAI. Anthropic stated that the agreement will immediately enhance capacity for users subscribed to its paid Claude Pro and Claude Max plans.
"We've agreed to a partnership with @SpaceX that will substantially increase our compute capacity. This, along with our other recent compute deals, means that we've been able to increase our usage limits for Claude Code and the Claude APL" the company posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Past Feud Between Elon Musk and Anthropic
The agreement follows a year of public tensions between Elon Musk and Anthropic. Musk, who merged SpaceX with his rival AI startup xAI, has repeatedly criticised Anthropic over its disagreements with the U.S. government.
Musk previously claimed that Anthropic was “destined to become the opposite of its name,” suggesting the company could become “misanthropic.” He also questioned whether there was “any company more hypocritical than Anthropic.” “Anthropic hates Western civilization,” Musk wrote in February.
However, Musk appeared to soften his stance on Wednesday. In a post on X, he said he had spent significant time over the past week with senior members of the Anthropic team and was impressed by them.
Other Partneships & Deals of Anthropic
Anthropic is broadening its roster of partners. The SpaceX deal marks the newest in a series of major infrastructure agreements Anthropic has struck with top global technology companies.
Anthropic’s arrangement with Amazon covers up to 5 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, with 1 GW anticipated to be available by the end of 2026.
Anthropic has established a 5GW partnership with Google and Broadcom that is scheduled to start coming online in 2027.
Furthermore, the company has partnerships with Microsoft and Nvidia involving $30 billion worth of Azure computing capacity.
Looking further into the future, Anthropic has signaled an interest in collaborating with SpaceX to build “orbital AI computing capacity” on the scale of multiple gigawatts. This move brings SpaceX into Anthropic’s expanding roster of partners.
