Open source AI startup Reflection AI has inked a historic deal with SpaceX to gain immediate access to thousands of Nvidia GB300 chips at the Colossus 2 data center near Memphis, Tennessee. The agreement is worth up to $6.3 billion, with monthly payments of $150 million starting July 1, 2026 through 2029, and either party can terminate the contract with 90 days' notice after the first three months.
$150 million per month for GB300 AI chips
Reflection AI will pay SpaceX $150 million each month to use the latest Nvidia GB300 accelerators and supporting hardware. This contract, though smaller than those signed by Anthropic ($1.25 billion per month) and Google ($920 million per month) with SpaceX, represents one of the largest announced infrastructure commitments for open AI. Elon Musk has publicly downplayed the three-year term, emphasizing that contracts can be canceled at any time.
Open-weight strategy as an alternative to closed models
Founded in 2024 by two former Google DeepMind researchers, Reflection AI focuses on open-weight models, publicly releasing their trained parameters. This strategy gained traction after the U.S. government imposed an export ban on Anthropic's closed models, Fable and Mythos. A company spokesperson said: "Recent events highlight how important open source is to the AI ecosystem, with more nations and enterprises recognizing the risks and costs of exclusively depending on closed models." The SpaceX deal signals Reflection's strategic positioning in the frontier AI landscape.
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Colossus 2: from xAI to chip rental hub
The Colossus data center was originally built by xAI, Elon Musk's company for its own AI efforts. As internal projects faltered, SpaceX leveraged its vast Nvidia chip inventory, renting them out to top AI labs. This follows a trend seen with Anthropic and Google, making Reflection the third major SpaceX AI cloud customer. For more on the energy infrastructure behind such data centers, read about Microsoft and Chevron building a 2.67 GW gas plant in Texas for AI. Additionally, the broader context of closed model bans is covered in Anthropic challenges the US government on AI, offering lessons for European SMEs.
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Reflection AI stands out for its open source philosophy, which may become increasingly relevant in a shifting regulatory environment. Access to massive compute power is critical for training competitive models, and this deal provides the resources needed to develop cutting-edge open models. According to official sources, the contract could extend beyond 2029 based on future computational needs. For further reading on open source AI, consider the Wikipedia article on open-source AI.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/22/spacex-inks-compute-deal-with-reflection-ai-an-open-source-ai-lab
