MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has signed a major computing power agreement with Reflection AI, further cementing the aerospace giant’s pivot into a leading provider of artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Under the multi-year contract, the open-source AI startup will pay SpaceX $150 million per month beginning July 1, 2026. If the agreement runs through its full term ending in 2029, the total transaction value will reach approximately $6.3 billion. The deal includes a flexible exit clause, allowing either party to terminate the partnership with 90 days’ notice after an initial three-month commitment.
“Recent events highlight how important open source is to the AI ecosystem, with more nations and enterprises recognizing the risks and costs associated with exclusively depending on closed models,” a Reflection AI spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Securing Next-Generation Silicon Amid Shortages
The partnership grants Reflection AI immediate access to Nvidia’s top-of-the-line GB300 AI chips and supporting hardware infrastructure. The hardware will be hosted at SpaceX’s burgeoning Colossus 2 data center facility near Memphis, Tennessee.
For Reflection AI—currently valued at $25 billion and backed by an $800 million investment from Nvidia—securing this compute capacity is critical. Access to advanced Nvidia architectures remains one of the tech industry’s most severe bottlenecks for training frontier large language models (LLMs).
Founded in 2024 by former Google DeepMind veterans Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou, Reflection AI has positioned itself as an American open-source alternative to proprietary model providers like OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as foreign competitors.
SpaceX’s Growing Compute Empire
The deal marks the third major external computing contract SpaceX has secured for its massive Memphis infrastructure complex, demonstrating the rapid monetization of its high-power data center capabilities following the company’s historic IPO:
- Anthropic signed a landmark agreement in May 2026 to lease the entire compute capacity of the original Colossus 1 facility in a deal valued at roughly $45 billion.
- Google committed to a $30 billion agreement in early June 2026, renting capacity at Colossus 2 for $920 million per month.
- Cursor, an AI coding startup utilizing the facility since April, was also recently acquired by SpaceX.
Originally built to house Elon Musk’s xAI venture—which officially merged into SpaceX earlier this year—the Colossus complex has expanded toward a planned 2 gigawatts of total power capacity. By aggressively leasing out excess GPU clusters, SpaceX is diversifying its recurring revenue streams, establishing itself as a vital infrastructure backbone in the global AI arms race.
