SpaceX has signed a major compute deal with Reflection AI, adding another outside customer to the company’s Colossus infrastructure and signaling that advanced data center capacity is becoming a business in its own right.
Under the agreement, Reflection gets immediate access to Nvidia GB300 chips and will pay SpaceX $150 million per month beginning July 1, 2026, through 2029, according to materials viewed by CNBC. If the deal runs to the end of the term, the payments would total about $6.3 billion.
What the deal changes
The arrangement shows how SpaceX is using its massive compute build-out beyond the system that supports Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok. It also puts Colossus in front of an open-source AI company at a time when more customers are questioning the risks of relying on closed-model providers.
Either company can end the contract with 90 days’ notice after the first three months. That flexibility makes the agreement large, but not locked in for the full period.
Why Reflection matters
Reflection is the latest company to tap SpaceX’s compute capacity after Anthropic, Google and Cursor. The startup, last valued at $25 billion, is trying to build American open-source AI models that can compete with frontier systems from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.
A Reflection spokesperson said, “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.” The company said the agreement gives it additional compute capacity to accelerate what it calls “American open intelligence.”
SpaceX’s broader AI play
SpaceX built Colossus in part to power Grok, but it is now also selling compute to outside AI companies. The move places SpaceX closer to cloud providers and AI infrastructure firms that are competing for scarce graphics processing unit capacity.
The company has already struck computing power-related deals with Anthropic, Google and Cursor, and Musk’s company is now acquiring Cursor. Investors have been watching whether SpaceX can expand beyond rockets and Starlink into AI, data centers and compute services.
Reflection has not yet released a public frontier open-source model, but it has been building momentum with government and national security customers. The company is working with the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission and has been part of broader Pentagon AI efforts.
For the AI market, the deal is another sign that compute itself has become strategic currency. Access to advanced Nvidia chips remains one of the biggest constraints for companies trying to train and serve frontier models, and Colossus is now part of that competition.
www.cnbc.com reported the agreement from materials viewed by CNBC, underscoring how aggressively major infrastructure owners are turning scarce chip capacity into a standalone revenue stream.
