Does xAI have some sort of edge over Anthropic when it comes to buying future compute?

If not, this just seems like grok not being as successful as they would have liked and then finding some other use for the compute they had bought for it while at the same time Anthropic can’t keep up with demand for claude.

Your second statement is correct IMO.

Re your first statement, the problem is that there isn't enough compute out there. xAI built their own data centers (and plan to built more -> in orbit). I don't think Anthropic has done that to the same extent and it seems like they will partner with multiple vendors who can provide the compute they need.

And SpaceX /xAI spent almost $20 B over the last 3 years on "AI" capex and has AI capex and operations costing $10B combined in Q1 2026...

Spending 40B to make $15B/year is a decent investment actually if you can do it for more than ~3-5 years.

If the anthropoc deal is profitable for spacex eventually anthropic will just build their own DC and cut out the middle man.

A DC full of the same chips everyone else has is no moat at all.

They are paying per month in a quickly shifting world.

with a 90 day opt out clause!

"in May 2026, we entered into Cloud Services Agreements with Anthropic, an AI research and development public benefit corporation, with respect to access to compute capacity across COLOSSUS and COLOSSUS II. Pursuant to these agreements, the customer has agreed to pay us $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, with capacity ramping in May and June 2026 at a reduced fee. The agreements may be terminated by either party upon 90 days’ notice."

They had to buy the data-center first.