xAI-Anthropic deal signals the rise of AI compute as a standalone business

New SpaceX IPO filings suggest frontier AI firms are beginning to treat compute infrastructure as a standalone commercial business, with Elon Musk’s xAI agreeing to provide large-scale AI capacity to competitor Anthropic. The filing disclosed that Anthropic agreed to purchase compute services delivered through xAI’s Colossus and Colossus II AI infrastructure clusters through May 2029 under an agreement valued at roughly $1.25 billion per month. The arrangement is notable because Anthropic competes directly with xAI in the market for frontier AI models and enterprise AI services, suggesting at least some AI developers are increasingly willing to buy large-scale compute capacity from rival infrastructure operators rather than rely exclusively on internally owned GPU fleets or traditional hyperscaler cloud platforms. SpaceX also said in the filing that it “may enter into additional compute capacity agreements with third parties in the future,” indicating the Anthropic deal may not remain