New Compute Partnership with Anthropic

Anthropic has struck a compute deal with Elon Musk’s AI infrastructure operation that gives Claude access to the full capacity of Colossus 1, the Memphis data center originally built for xAI workloads. xAI’s own announcement was hard to fetch directly because of Cloudflare blocks, but the official page was visible in search results, and outside reporting from CNBC says the agreement covers more than 300 megawatts of compute capacity. Anthropic said the new supply will directly improve capacity for paid Claude users, a notable move at a time when the company has repeatedly acknowledged infrastructure strain as demand rises.

The partnership is strategically unusual because Anthropic and xAI are nominal competitors, and Musk has spent months publicly attacking Anthropic. CNBC notes that Musk reversed tone this week after meeting with Anthropic leadership, saying he was impressed by the team and was comfortable leasing Colossus 1 after SpaceXAI had already moved training to Colossus 2. Simon Willison also highlighted that point in his write-up of the announcement, arguing that some early takes overstated the idea that xAI was giving up its own model ambitions; the better reading is that Musk is splitting internal training and external compute leasing across separate facilities.

Even so, the deal carries baggage. Colossus 1 has faced heavy criticism over its environmental footprint in Memphis, including scrutiny around turbine use and air-quality concerns. That means Anthropic gets badly needed compute, but also inherits a reputational risk tied to where that compute is coming from. The broader signal is still clear: frontier labs are now so hungry for infrastructure that even bitter rivals are willing to do business when enough capacity is on the table.

Sources: xAI official announcement — https://x.ai/news/anthropic-compute-partnership | CNBC — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/06/anthropic-spacex-data-center-capacity.html