SpaceX commits to $40B NVIDIA GPU lease for terrestrial AI buildout

SpaceX is accelerating its shift from rocket company to major AI infrastructure player. Anthropic, the developer of Claude, disclosed in its IPO prospectus that it has agreed to spend up to $120.5 billion on computing capacity from SpaceXAI, SpaceX’s AI subsidiary. The related agreements would extend into 2029 while monthly payments would reach about $3.1 billion once all capacity is delivered, which Anthropic expects in December 2026. A separate Google contract could generate roughly $30 billion for SpaceX through June 2029 for access to approximately 110,000 NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) and supporting equipment.

To expand that computing infrastructure, SpaceX announced on Oct. 26 a binding commitment for a proposed $40 billion equipment lease that includes AI chipmaker NVIDIA’s next-generation Vera Rubin platform.

The investment will support SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business unit, which includes its AI models, cloud computing services, coding tools and X social platform. The unit generated $7.56 billion in third-quarter revenue, up from $813 million a year earlier.

SpaceX disclosed on Oct. 26 that it had signed the binding commitment on Oct. 24. The equipment will include Vera Rubin, AI chipmaker NVIDIA’s next-generation computing platform. Apollo will manage the investment entity that buys the hardware and leases it to SpaceX for use at data centers SpaceX selects. Equipment deliveries and lease schedules are expected to begin in the first half of 2027, with payments extending over approximately five years.

Lease schedules run about five years

Each batch of equipment will have a separate lease schedule lasting approximately five to five and a quarter years, according to SpaceX’s Form 8-K current report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SpaceX will pay rent quarterly in advance. Quarterly rent will generally include one-twentieth of each batch’s financed cost, interest calculated at a fixed annual rate on the outstanding lease balance, and certain ongoing costs and expenses. The fixed interest rate will be set before SpaceX signs the master finance lease, the overarching agreement covering the equipment batches.

The $40 billion figure represents expected principal payments, or repayment of the financed equipment cost, over the lease schedules. Interest and ongoing costs come in addition to that amount. SpaceX expects to close the master lease before the end of 2026 once specified closing conditions are met.

Apollo and investment bank Goldman Sachs led the committed financing, with Goldman serving as sole structuring agent. Funds and accounts managed by asset managers BlackRock and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, plus capital accounts that investment firm KKR advises, also committed capital.

SpaceX chief financial officer Bret Johnsen said the company is seeing payback periods of less than one year on its Super Intelligence infrastructure investments.

“This lease diversifies our funding sources and addresses a notable portion of the funding required to deliver on our growth plans,” Johnsen said in the transaction announcement.

Installed compute and capital spending climb

SpaceX reported 1.7 gigawatts of installed GPU capacity, a metric it calls nameplate compute, at Sept. 30, up from 0.6 gigawatts a year earlier. It defines the metric as the number of installed GPUs multiplied by their all-in power, a capacity measure separate from actual power consumption and utilization. The metric excludes power used by supporting infrastructure such as cooling systems and power-distribution losses.

The Super Intelligence unit recorded $16.44 billion of third-quarter capital spending, accounting for most of SpaceX’s $19.59 billion companywide total, according to its Form 10-Q quarterly filing. Super Intelligence revenue included $7.02 billion from solutions and infrastructure and $538 million from advertising. Growth reflected a full quarter of cloud services revenue, additional cloud contracts, and increased Grok and X subscriptions. Cursor, the AI coding company SpaceX acquired on Aug. 14, contributed $608 million in revenue from the acquisition date through Sept. 30.

One Super Intelligence customer supplied 34.5% of SpaceX’s companywide third-quarter revenue and 24.2% for the first nine months of 2026. The customer accounted for no more than 10% of companywide revenue in the corresponding 2025 periods. SpaceX said its cloud services contracts typically run for three years and allow either party to terminate on 90 days’ notice.

Fitch says lease leaves SpaceX’s BBB+ rating unchanged

Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings said on Oct. 28 that the lease would leave SpaceX’s BBB+ investment-grade credit rating unchanged, according to Investing.com’s report on Yahoo Finance. The report said the lease fits the assumptions underlying Fitch’s credit rating and finances compute capacity already included in its June 2026 forecast. The agency’s forecasts assume average nameplate compute of 5 gigawatts in 2027 and 9.5 gigawatts in 2028.

According to the report, Fitch expects to exclude the lease balance from its primary debt metrics under its treatment of equipment leases. It will also track lease-adjusted leverage, a supplemental measure of indebtedness that incorporates lease obligations. Fitch will deduct lease amortization, or repayment of the financed cost, and interest in its own calculation of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).

The financing covers ground-based systems. SpaceX separately has proposed an orbital data-center network of up to one million satellites at altitudes of 500 to 2,000 kilometers. The Sept. 28 flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket deployed 26 third-generation satellites for its Starlink broadband network and tested satellite-delivery and communications technologies relevant to that proposal, as R&D World reported on Oct. 7. The proposed orbital computing system’s onboard computing hardware, ability to shed heat continuously and operation at scale remain to be demonstrated.

SpaceX is one of R&D World’s 100 most innovative companies of 2026. The company profile examined its reusable launch systems, Starlink business and expansion into AI following its February acquisition of xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company. SpaceX made xAI a wholly owned subsidiary when it completed the acquisition on Feb. 2, 2026.