Goldman says SpaceX’s GPU rental boom exposes AI’s revenue gap

SpaceX built enormous data centers to train AI models. Now it rents out the spare horsepower, and business is very, very good. Goldman Sachs thinks that may be exactly the problem. The bank says compute rental prices sit well above the revenue the AI industry needs to reach profitability, which suggests customers are paying a scarcity premium rather than a sustainable market rate. The new landlord of the AI boom SpaceX’s AI segment brought in $2.56 billion in Q2 2026. That marks a 247% jump from the same quarter a year earlier. The growth comes from renting surplus GPU compute out of its Colossus data centers. Those facilities were originally built to train models for the company’s xAI segment. The segment also posted its first positive adjusted EBITDA, coming in at $1.1 billion. The customer list reads like a who’s who of AI. Anthropic is paying roughly $1.25 billion per month under a deal that runs through May 2029. Google is paying approximately $920 million per month. A third, undisclosed customer has signed a $1.11 billion monthly contract set to begin in December 2026. That new deal pushes SpaceX’s total annualized compute commitments past $40 billion. Why Goldman sees a warn...