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Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

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Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#11

> SpaceX said in the filing that if it fails to “deliver access to the committed amount of GPUs by September 30, 2026,” Google can immediately end the agreement, or accept the number of GPUs provided at a reduced fee after a one-month grace period. > After this year, the agreement can be terminated by either party provided they give 90 days’ notice. Circular financing at its peak for the IPO. There has to be some reg…

There is nothing shady or circular in the text you quoted

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#12
post #8

Another way to read this is, "Twitter's AI dept. has been doing so badly they don't have a use for billions of dollars of hardware they bought."

On the one hand, yes, this is really embarrassing for Grok. On the other hand, everyone except a couple Twitter randos already thinks Grok is worthless junk: there's no reputation left for it to to lose. And Elon is crying all the way to the bank with an extra $11bn in annual revenue.

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#15
post #7

How did Elon get so much NVIDIA hardware before everyone else?

> How did Elon get so much NVIDIA hardware before everyone else?

He’s the richest man on the planet and doesn’t have a track record of not paying for shit he buys. If you want to reliably offload your chips, he’s safer than e.g. OpenAI who might or might not have the money when the bill comes due.

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#16

Which means more Grok degradation, more severe throttling, etc. I can't understand why xAI charges 50% more per month for Grok over competitors when it doesn't even gracefully downgrade to a cheaper model when paid subscribers hit the limit.

Why would you even want to use that dumpster fire of a model in the first place..?

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#17
post #8

Another way to read this is, "Twitter's AI dept. has been doing so badly they don't have a use for billions of dollars of hardware they bought."

The downfall of Twitter is one of the most spectacular self inflicted business failures I have ever witnessed.

Amazing to think it was once so ingrained in mainstream society.

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#18
Tangent alert: a couple of questions for folks who know far more than I do about compute capacity and Google these days...

Lately, like the past few months, I've noticed Google services (search, gmail, drive, maps) running very slowly to the point where, at the moment it happens, I always think it has to be my connection and not Google, but sure enough every time I check a couple of speed tests and they're... fine. And then I don't seem to be having the same latency from other sites/apps. Is there any chance that the commingling of the AI snippet and then directing users into the AI funnel through the text box is actually causing material performance impacts in other Google properties? Probably a dumb question because I can't imagine they would allow performance for broader properties to suffer for AI prompts/chats, but then again all this talk of compute starts making me think otherwise, like the prolific amount of prompting and chatting is causing massive across-the-board performance issues.

Somewhat related, but does anyone use Gemini and end up with the experience where you have a chat and it's obvious, to yourself and to Gemini, that you're trying to find a product to purchase, but Gemini doesn't even link you to what you would think would be the obvious place to purchase the product? This happens daily where I interact with it, it suggests some products, but won't even provide a link to that product or, if it does provide a link, it's to some no name site that wouldn't come up as a highly-ranked paid or organic result through regular Google search. Keeps making me think this is a Google performance problem where they have not figured out how to take the entire AI chat and engineer it back into a simple short keyword phrase to get an acceptable search result.

Btw, if anyone's thinking "why are you using Gemini because it's the worst?" I think that's fair and right. I have... reasons, but they're not super sensible ones.

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#19
post #9
post #7

How did Elon get so much NVIDIA hardware before everyone else?

I've heard the harder part is to have data centers to put the nvidia hardware than getting the hardware currently.

And the secret ingridient to building those faster than others is... crime.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-musk...

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#20
post #16

Which means more Grok degradation, more severe throttling, etc. I can't understand why xAI charges 50% more per month for Grok over competitors when it doesn't even gracefully downgrade to a cheaper model when paid subscribers hit the limit.

Why would you even want to use that dumpster fire of a model in the first place..?

Probably because it has all but zero filters on the input and output. It took widespread media outrage about "grok show me her in a bikini" to at least create a filter that bans such things.

[1] https://counterhate.com/research/grok-floods-x-with-sexualiz...

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