Anthropic will pay xAI $1.25B per month for compute

Published on 5/20/2026, 9:29:22 PM

Key points

In Brief Earlier this month, Anthropic surprised the AI world with a deal to buy 300 megawatts’ worth of compute — securing the entire output of the Colossus 1 data center near Memphis, Tennessee.
Turns out, compute at that scale isn’t cheap.
Anthropic will be paying xAI $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, with a discounted rate for the first two months as xAI completes its ramp-up.
All told, the deal could bring xAI over $40 billion in revenue.
Details of the transaction emerged from SpaceX’s S-1 filing with the SEC.

Quick context: In Brief Earlier this month, Anthropic surprised the AI world with a deal to buy 300 megawatts’ worth of compute — securing the entire output of the Colossus 1 data center near Memphis, Tennessee.

Published May 20, 2026.

📌 Source: Tim De Chant

The BriefWire