SpaceX has signed a computing power agreement worth up to $6.3 billion with open-source AI startup Reflection, marking the latest outside company to tap Elon Musk's Colossus infrastructure. Under the deal, Reflection will pay SpaceX $150 million per month from July 1, 2026, through 2029, gaining immediate access to Nvidia GB300 chips for training and running advanced AI models. The contract can be terminated by either party with 90 days' notice after the first three months.
Colossus expands beyond Grok
SpaceX built the Colossus data center primarily to power Grok, Musk's AI chatbot, but is now selling computing capacity to external firms. The company has already struck similar deals with Anthropic, Google, and Cursor, which SpaceX is currently acquiring. Reflection adds a strategically different customer: an AI lab focused on open-source models, at a time when governments and enterprises are reassessing reliance on closed AI systems.
Reflection, last valued at $25 billion, is building American open-source AI models to compete with frontier systems from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The startup has not yet released a public frontier open-source model but has been gaining traction with government and national security clients, including work with the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission and broader Pentagon AI efforts.
Open-source momentum and strategic compute
The timing of the deal is notable. Open-source AI has gained momentum after Anthropic cut off access to Fable and Mythos, raising concerns about dependence on closed-model providers. "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," a Reflection spokesperson said.
For SpaceX, the agreement underscores that computing power has become strategic currency in the AI race. Access to advanced Nvidia chips remains a major constraint for companies training frontier models. By opening Colossus to outside customers, SpaceX positions itself alongside cloud providers and AI infrastructure firms racing to sell scarce GPU capacity, while also justifying its growing AI infrastructure narrative. Investors have been watching whether SpaceX can expand beyond rockets and Starlink into AI, data centers, and compute services.