xAI is looking more like a datacentre REIT than a frontier lab

xAI is leasing roughly 330,000 H100-class GPUs across two deals — $1.25B/month to Anthropic for 300MW at Colossus 1 in Memphis and $920M/month to Google for 110k GPUs — generating enough revenue to recoup full capex within 18 months if sustained. The argument is that xAI's business model now resembles a GPU colocation REIT more than a frontier AI lab, with SpaceX merger meaning proceeds flow into the pre-IPO entity. Both contracts include 90-day cancellation clauses after initial lock-in, making the revenue stream less certain than the headline figures suggest.