Elon Musk’s big project Colossus, which he calls the “gigafactory of computing”, is seen in Memphis, Tennessee, US August 22, 2024.
Karen Pulfer Focht Reuters
SpaceX has signed a major computing power deal with Reflection AI, making the open-source artificial intelligence company the latest outside company to touch the infrastructure of Elon Musk’s Colossus.
Under the deal, Reflection will get immediate access to it Nvidia GB300, the advanced AI chips used to train and operate advanced models, and has agreed to pay SpaceX $150 million per month from July 1, 2026, until 2029, according to materials seen by CNBC.
The payments will total $6.3 billion if the deal goes through its term.
Either company can terminate the contract with 90 days’ notice after the first three months.
The deal shows how SpaceX is leveraging its massive data center infrastructure after its initial public offering. The company built Colossus in part to power Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot and ChatGPT competitor. Now, SpaceX is using that infrastructure to sell computing power to third-party AI companies.
SpaceX already has deals related to computing power with Anthropic, Google and Cursor, and Musk’s company is now acquiring Cursor. Reflection adds another client to that list, and a very different one: an AI lab focused on open source models at a time when governments and businesses are reevaluating reliance on closed AI systems.
Time is remarkable. Open source AI gained momentum after Anthropic cut off access to Fable and Mythos, raising questions about the dangers of relying on closed-model providers to do important work. The episode gave open model companies a strong argument that customers should be able to explore, customize and use models with more control.
Reflections are directly on that platform as the startup, which has maintained a value of 25 billion dollars, is trying to create AI models for American open sources that can compete with the border programs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, while giving governments and businesses more flexibility than closed programs.
“Recent events highlight how important open source is to the AI ecosystem, with many nations and businesses realizing the risks and costs associated with relying on closed models,” a Reflection spokesperson said in a statement.
Reflection said the deal gives it more computing, or computing, power to accelerate what it calls “American open intelligence.”
The startup has yet to release a public open source model, but has been building momentum for government and national security customers. The company is working with the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission and has been part of the Pentagon’s broader AI efforts.
For SpaceX, the deal is another sign that computing itself has become a strategic currency in the AI race. Access to advanced Nvidia chips remains one of the biggest hurdles for companies trying to train and use frontier models. By opening up Colossus to outside customers, the company is positioning itself alongside cloud providers and AI infrastructure companies that are racing to sell graphics processing unit capacity.
It also gives SpaceX another way to justify its growing AI infrastructure narrative.
Investors have been watching to see if SpaceX can expand beyond rockets and Starlink into AI, data centers and computing services.
