Anthropic to Lease Entire Colossus 1 Data Center from SpaceX-xAI in Landmark AI Compute Deal
April 24, 2026
Anthropic to Lease Entire Colossus 1 Data Center from SpaceX-xAI in Landmark AI Compute Deal
Anthropic has agreed to utilize all of the compute capacity at xAI's Colossus 1 data center, marking a significant partnership between the AI firm and SpaceX, the parent company of the data center's operator. The deal underscores the intensifying race for massive computational resources in the generative AI sector.
Under the agreement, Anthropic will hand over roughly half of its total GPU fleet—approximately 500,000 units—to power its operations at the Tennessee-based facility. The Colossus 1 data center is equipped with Nvidia H100, H200, and GB200 accelerators. This arrangement places Anthropic, a direct competitor to xAI, at the heart of the infrastructure built by its rival's parent company.
In addition to the Colossus 1 lease, Anthropic stated it has "expressed interest" in partnering with SpaceX to develop multiple gigawatts of orbital AI compute capacity. This follows SpaceX's January filing with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to deploy a million-satellite orbital AI data center megaconstellation, though the project faces significant regulatory and technical hurdles. Just a month after that filing, SpaceX announced a merger with xAI, valuing the combined entity at $1.25 trillion.
The deal comes amid a backdrop of intense competition and public friction. Elon Musk, who oversees both SpaceX and xAI, had previously called Anthropic "woke," "misanthropic," and "evil." However, following the recent agreement, Musk softened his tone, stating on X: "Everyone I met was highly competent and cared a great deal about doing the right thing. No one set off my evil detector. So long as they engage in critical self-examination, Claude will probably be good. After that, I was ok leasing Colossus 1 to Anthropic, as SpaceXAI had already moved training to Colossus 2."
The Colossus data centers, located in Memphis, Tennessee, have drawn scrutiny from civil rights groups for their use of natural gas turbines, which critics allege violate environmental regulations. xAI launched its Colossus supercomputer in 2024 at a former Electrolux factory in Memphis's Boxtown district. The company purchased the site for Colossus 2 in March 2025, and that facility came online in January. A third data center is under development in Southaven, Mississippi, with the company also spending $659 million on an adjacent building.
Separately, xAI announced in April that Colossus data center capacity would be used by Cursor, an AI code editing company. Cursor has also agreed to a $60 billion conditional takeover offer from SpaceX; if the acquisition does not go through, SpaceX must pay Cursor $10 billion. The number of GPUs allocated to Cursor has not been disclosed.
Industry analysts note that the partnership highlights the growing interdependence between AI model developers and infrastructure providers. The deal also brings attention to operational efficiency: The Information reported that xAI's model flops utilization was around 11 percent, well below the 40 percent achieved by some rivals, raising questions about how effectively the massive compute capacity will be leveraged.
Source: datacenterdynamics
