SpaceX Secures Major AI Computing Deal, Nears $100 Billion Annual Revenue Goal

According to MarketWatch, SpaceX (SPCX-US) has secured another artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity deal, bringing the company one step closer to its ambitious revenue goals.

Bret Johnsen, SpaceX's long-time Chief Financial Officer, announced on Thursday (the 10th) at a Goldman Sachs-hosted conference that the company had signed an AI computing capacity contract earlier this month with an unnamed enterprise. The contract, starting in December, is valued at $1.1 billion per month, translating to an annualized revenue run rate of approximately $13 billion.

This deal brings SpaceX closer to its goal of achieving a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate (ARR) by the end of 2026. Companies typically estimate ARR by projecting full-year revenue based on short-term performance. Achieving this target would represent a significant leap from SpaceX's revenue levels just a few months ago.

Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu estimates that SpaceX's ARR in Q2 was only around $31 billion. However, he stated in a report last month that the $100 billion target is "quite easily achievable," largely due to contributions from a new cloud service provider (neocloud) and Cursor, a startup recently acquired by SpaceX.

Demand for computing power from AI-related companies remains extremely strong, while supply still lags behind overall industry demand. According to a PwC report, over $36 trillion is expected to be invested globally in computing infrastructure by 2050. SpaceX, Microsoft, and other companies have turned the sale and leasing of cloud computing power into a major business.

In July, SpaceX signed a six-month, $6.7 billion computing contract with an unnamed customer, which several analysts believe may be the U.S. Department of Defense. SpaceX has also signed multi-year agreements with AI company Anthropic, Alphabet (Google)—a competitor and investor—and startup Reflection AI to provide computing capacity.

According to related documents, Anthropic has agreed to pay SpaceX $1.25 billion per month through May 2029. Google has agreed to pay $920 million per month starting next month through June 2029.

However, these contracts come with a notable limitation. Johnsen noted that "almost all, if not all" of SpaceX's computing contracts allow either party to terminate the agreement after only a few months of collaboration. As a result, SpaceX could lose these multi-billion-dollar deals before their original terms expire.

Nonetheless, Johnsen explained that the early termination clause exists because SpaceX "has confidence in its own products." These products themselves require computing power for inference and training.

"You don't want to permanently allocate computing capacity to others in a way that restricts your own product development in the coming years," Johnsen added.