SpaceX Leases 220,000-GPU Colossus 1 Data Center to Anthropic

SpaceX will lease its Colossus 1 artificial intelligence data center in Memphis, Tennessee, to Anthropic, the companies announced on Wednesday. The facility houses more than 220,000 Nvidia processors and will give Anthropic 300 megawatts of new capacity within a month. Elon Musk stated that SpaceX will provide compute to AI companies taking the right steps to ensure it is good for humanity.

He added that SpaceX reserves the right to reclaim the compute if their AI engages in actions that harm humanity. Musk said he would provide computing capacity to other AI companies that make similar efforts to favor humanity. He compared the arrangement to how SpaceX launches satellites for competitors with fair terms and pricing.

The decision followed Musk spending time with Anthropic leaders last week. Their work to ensure Anthropic’s Claude AI is “good for humanity” impressed him, he said. “No one set off my evil detector,” Musk wrote.

SpaceX has moved its AI training efforts to Colossus 2. Musk made the comments in a statement on X as Anthropic held a developer day in San Francisco on Wednesday. ” The feature is meant to help AI systems learn by reviewing work between sessions, spotting patterns, and updating files that store user preferences and other context.

Anthropic is doubling Claude Code’s rate limits for its paid plans. It is removing peak-hour usage caps for Pro and Max accounts and sharply increasing the volume of requests developers can make to its Claude Opus models. Anthropic has expressed interest in working with SpaceX to develop multiple gigawatts of space-based orbital data centers.

The collaboration aligns with one of Musk’s key goals and a major driver behind SpaceX’s initial public offering. SpaceX’s IPO is expected in June. It is poised to raise tens of billions of dollars and value the company above $2 trillion.

If the IPO occurs as planned, the company owning a rocket manufacturer, a social media app, and an AI chatbot developer will rank among the world’s top 10 largest publicly-traded companies. On Wednesday, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote to the US Securities and Exchange Commission urging scrutiny of SpaceX’s IPO preparations.

8 million members whose retirement accounts are likely to hold SpaceX shares soon after the offering.

“Weingarten cited concerns about the company’s business plans potentially relying on nonexistent or speculative technologies, the reported thoroughness of its accounting, and the adequacy of its board of directors,” according to a letter shared with WIRED. ” AkademikerPension has been divested from Tesla since last year. ABP sold off a stake approaching $600 million in Tesla in 2024.

Both funds are reviewing potential SpaceX investments with caution. Activists demonstrated outside of meetings with investors that SpaceX held in Tennessee and Texas last month. Environmental groups expressed fears that the company’s growth could fuel further pollution.

Musk testified last week in his trial against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In February, Musk accused Anthropic’s AI of bias and wrote that he doesn’t think there is anything that can escape the inevitable irony of Anthropic ending up being misanthropic. The lease marks a reversal from those earlier criticisms.

Musk described SpaceX as “life insurance for life as we know it” during last week’s testimony, emphasizing its goal of making humans a multiplanetary species to ensure long-term survival of life and consciousness.