Elon Musk says Anthropic's Colossus deal is "a 180 day lease with 90 day notice"; SpaceX's S-1 said Anthropic "agreed to pay a monthly fee through May 2029" (Russell Brandom/TechCrunch)

Anthropic's major infrastructure deal with xAI for access to Colossus computing resources is structured as a flexible 180-day lease with 90-day termination notice, rather than a long-term commitment, despite SpaceX filings indicating monthly payments through May 2029. This arrangement highlights the volatile nature of AI compute partnerships and the risks of dependency on external infrastructure providers for mission-critical AI model development. Technology leaders should recognize that even large-scale AI infrastructure agreements lack long-term stability, creating potential disruptions to AI development timelines and requiring robust contingency planning.