In a regulatory filing submitted to the SEC a week before its IPO, SpaceX revealed a massive compute lease deal with Google. Starting October 2026, Google will pay $920 million per month to use approximately 110,000 NVIDIA GPUs, along with CPUs, memory, and related hardware. The contract runs through June 2029, with a total value of about $30 billion.
Key terms include a progressive activation of compute capacity at a discounted rate before September. If SpaceX fails to deliver the promised GPU count by September 30, 2026, Google can terminate the contract after a one-month grace period, or accept the actual delivery and adjust the monthly fee proportionally. Both sides retain an exit clause: after December 31, 2026, either party may terminate with 90 days' notice.
SpaceX did not specify which data center Google will use. Elon Musk previously stated that Colossus 2 would be reserved for xAI's own use, but the Google contract appears to contradict that, leaving details unclear.
Colossus: From xAI's Internal Cluster to a Global GPU Rental Platform
Colossus 1, located on the outskirts of Memphis, Tennessee, was originally built for xAI's own AI research. After xAI was folded into SpaceX earlier this year, Musk gained a pool of idle compute capacity—just as the AI industry's demand surged.
About a month ago, Anthropic signed the first compute lease with SpaceX: $1.25 billion per month for all available capacity of Colossus 1, estimated at 220,000 GPUs, also through 2029. Google's deal is roughly half that scale—110,000 cards—but the unit cost is similar to Anthropic's.
Combined: Anthropic's $1.25B + Google's $0.92B = $2.17 billion per month, translating to an annual compute revenue of about $26 billion. SpaceX's Colossus data center is evolving from an AI company's infrastructure into a new-style cloud compute provider centered on GPU cluster leasing.
Why Would Google Rent Compute When It Has Its Own?
Google's official explanation is a 'temporary bridge'. In a statement, Google Cloud said this is a 'short-term, immediate agreement' to 'ensure bridge compute capacity to handle the unexpected surge in customer demand for Gemini Enterprise'. The idea is to rent external resources to weather demand peaks while building out its own data centers.
Data centers typically take 18 to 36 months from groundbreaking to production. In that window, market demand doesn't wait—even for Google, one of the world's top data center builders.
The relationship between Google and SpaceX goes far beyond this compute deal. Google is a long-time investor in SpaceX, with a post-IPO stake estimated at over $100 billion. The two are also reportedly exploring the possibility of building orbital data centers, a key long-term initiative for SpaceX after its IPO.