SpaceX has landed a multi-year cloud services agreement with Google valued at $920 million per month, a major deal in the days leading up to its highly anticipated IPO.
The accord, disclosed on Friday in an amended regulatory filing, positions the aerospace giant as a sudden power player in the artificial intelligence (AI) hardware leasing market.
Under the agreement, SpaceX will provide Google with approximately 110,000 NVIDIA Corp. graphics processing units (GPUs), alongside central processors, memory, and associated infrastructure. The arrangement features a reduced-rate capacity ramp-up period through September, with full monthly payments kicking in from October 2026 and running through June 2029.
The contract includes strict performance clauses. If SpaceX fails to deliver the committed GPU access by Sept. 30, 2026, Google retains the option to either terminate the contract immediately after a one-month grace period or accept fewer GPUs at a reduced fee. After Dec. 31, 2026, either company can exit the deal with 90 days’ written notice. Google will retain all ownership and intellectual property rights for its content, AI models, and data.
A Google Cloud spokesperson confirmed the arrangement to CNBC, characterizing it as a temporary measure to accommodate unprecedented enterprise growth.
“This is a short-term, timely agreement to ensure we have bridge capacity to meet surging customer demand for our agent platform, Gemini Enterprise, which has been even higher than we expected,” the spokesperson said.
By pivoting to lease its vast data centers, SpaceX is successfully monetizing the workflows originally built for Grok. The financial boost is expected to strengthen SpaceX’s narrative as it seeks a public market valuation exceeding $1.75 trillion in next week’s offering.
“Securing AI compute has shifted from building to renting, with even the largest infrastructure owners leasing third-party GPUs to absorb demand they cannot provision in time,” said Mitch Ashley, vice president and practice lead for Software Lifecycle Engineering and AI-Native Software Engineering at The Futurum Group. “Accelerator access is becoming a commodity sourced from outside the hyperscaler buildout. Capacity procurement is now a recurring decision, and the contract terms prove it: ramped pricing, delivery deadlines, and short exit windows. Buyers must manage compute as a hedged supply line, pricing delivery risk and optionality into every commitment.”
The transaction marks a stark role reversal from five years ago, when Google supplied networking resources to support SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet.
The Google contract represents SpaceX’s second massive infrastructure deal since its February merger with xAI, Elon Musk’s AI venture, which valued the combined entity at $1.25 trillion. In May, Anthropic signed a separate three-year, $45 billion deal to utilize computing power at SpaceX’s Colossus data centers in Memphis, Tenn. Combined, the Google and Anthropic agreements are projected to generate roughly $26 billion annually, totaling over $70 billion across their lifespans.
The massive revenue stream arrives at a critical juncture for Musk. SpaceX’s prospectus revealed that its AI segment recorded a heavy $2.5 billion operating loss in the first quarter on just $818 million in revenue, driven by a whopping $7.7 billion capital expenditure investment in AI infrastructure.
Furthermore, xAI’s flagship chatbot, Grok, has struggled to gain market share while facing intense scrutiny and government probes over deepfake controversies.
