SpaceX and Anthropic 300MW Compute Partnership

Chamath Palihapitiya · Chamath Palihapitiya · May 09, 2026 at 15:40 · ⏱ 6 min read  | Read on Substack ↗
Summary
The article highlights a massive compute deal between SpaceX and Anthropic, Pentagon AI vendor expansions, and DeepSeek's $45B valuation, collectively indicating explosive demand for AI infrastructure. For markets, this reinforces NVIDIA as the primary GPU beneficiary and positions cloud hyperscalers and defense contractors with AI clearance as key winners, while Anthropic's Pentagon exclusion signals vulnerability.
  • •Anthropic signed a multi-year deal with SpaceX to rent the entire 300MW compute capacity of Colossus 1, generating $3-4B annual revenue for SpaceX with more than $2.5B cash profit.
  • •Microsoft's Q1 2026 Global AI Diffusion Report shows 17.8% generative AI adoption among working-age population globally; UAE leads at 70.1%, US at 31.3% (21st place).
  • •Pentagon expanded approved AI vendors to eight firms for classified IL6/IL7 workloads: Google, Microsoft, AWS, NVIDIA, OpenAI, SpaceX, Oracle, Reflection AI; Anthropic excluded as supply-chain risk.
  • •DeepSeek is raising $3-4B at a $45B valuation led by China's Big Fund, after releasing V4 model (1.6T params) that scored higher than GPT-5.4 on Codeforces and matched Opus 4.6 Max on SWE-bench Verified.
  • •Commerce Dept's CAISI added Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and xAI to pre-deployment evaluation agreements, while renegotiating with OpenAI and Anthropic.
  • •Pentagon's Scale AI contract ceiling raised to $500M for data labeling and decision support, up from $100M in September 2025.
Read time 6 min
Length 6,194 chars
Category finance
Trade Ideas
Chamath Palihapitiya CEO, Social Capital
Microsoft published the Global AI Diffusion Report, announced $50B investment in Global South AI, and is on the Pentagon's approved vendor list, signaling strong AI commitment and potential cloud serv
Microsoft published the Global AI Diffusion Report, announced $50B investment in Global South AI, and is on the Pentagon's approved vendor list, signaling strong AI commitment and potential cloud services demand. Risk: Large capex commitments may pressure near-term margins; regulatory scrutiny on AI safety.
MSFT
Chamath Palihapitiya CEO, Social Capital
Google DeepMind was added to Commerce Dept's CAISI pre-deployment evaluations and Google is on the Pentagon's vendor list, indicating government trust and potential future contracts.
Google DeepMind was added to Commerce Dept's CAISI pre-deployment evaluations and Google is on the Pentagon's vendor list, indicating government trust and potential future contracts. Risk: Antitrust headwinds and competitive pressure from OpenAI/Microsoft.
GOOGL
Chamath Palihapitiya CEO, Social Capital
Article highlights SpaceX's Colossus 1 contains over 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs (H100, H200, GB200) and xAI's 550,000-GPU fleet, underscoring massive and sustained demand for NVIDIA's hardware in AI compute
Article highlights SpaceX's Colossus 1 contains over 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs (H100, H200, GB200) and xAI's 550,000-GPU fleet, underscoring massive and sustained demand for NVIDIA's hardware in AI compute buildouts. Risk: GPU oversupply or shift to custom ASICs could pressure margins; geopolitical export controls remain a headwind.
NVDA
Chamath Palihapitiya CEO, Social Capital
AWS is on the Pentagon's approved vendor list for classified AI workloads, which could drive government cloud and AI services revenue.
AWS is on the Pentagon's approved vendor list for classified AI workloads, which could drive government cloud and AI services revenue. Risk: Execution risk in high-security environments; margin compression from competitive pricing.
AMZN
Chamath Palihapitiya CEO, Social Capital
Oracle is named as one of eight firms cleared for Pentagon's classified IL6/IL7 AI workloads, a significant government endorsement that can drive cloud and AI services revenue.
Oracle is named as one of eight firms cleared for Pentagon's classified IL6/IL7 AI workloads, a significant government endorsement that can drive cloud and AI services revenue. Risk: Execution on classified deployments may be slower than anticipated; competition from hyperscalers.
ORCL
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