Since Cursor often relies on Claude models, some of those services will flow back to their own datacenter compute. Especially if there's, lets call it, "customer demand loadbalancing optimization agreements" that makes those Cursor services prioritize Claude models using the app keys that get load-balanced onto the SpaceX datacenter.
Did SpaceX just spend $10B to rent out its own datacenter, juicing their recurring revenue metrics with their own AI services investment?
I don't think it's the conspiracy theory that you're making it out to be.
It is publicly known that the vast majority of deals in the AI space are circular in nature without the need for explicitly encoding any of it in a legal contract or even tacit agreements.
e.g. Nvidia has invested significantly in many AI companies including both Anthropic and OpenAI which rely heavily on Nvidia's hardware and will undoubtedly use some of said investment towards that end.
Nvidia and Oracle are already public companies, they're just aiming for their next quarterly statements.
SpaceX is getting dressed for their debutante ball and is putting on the makeup to make a grand entrance on the auction floor.
Is there a difference? I legitimately have no idea. You are right that we can add another entry to the list of interconnected circular dealmakings. All this ain't gonna end well next time the music stops playing.
Its not even that. Its better to be involved in the game with a leader/help out a competitor who is competing against someone you don't like and don't want them to win, than to sit it out.
It was pretty obvious to me that the merger was a way of quietly shutting xAI down in a way that keeps investors happy. With it also being used as a vehicle to offload the Twitter debt to the public, he certainly has good accountants.
Yep - and in the meantime it's an asset of SpaceX to boost their IPO price, as long as this is done before people realize that xAI is apparently becoming a datacenter company not an AI one.
Then you've got SpaceX buying 1200 cybertrucks from Tesla, so it's serving as failure laundering vehicle for all his endeavors.
Yeah it's corporate subprime. Bundle a load of overpriced "assets" with made up valuations into something that's actually valuable, then shove it on the public markets so everyone has to buy it in their index trackers.
Plot twist but makes perfect sense for both companies.
Anthropic gets the compute they so desperately need to keep growing. Elon rents out compute that xAI couldn't make use of due to little demand for Grok. SpaceX gets revenue on the books for IPO.
PS. I want to translate this part:
We’re very intentional about where we’ll add capacity—partnering with democratic countries whose legal and regulatory frameworks support investments of this scale
To real speak:
We're putting profits above anything else. Yes, Elon is a far right guy who supported Trump, a president who isn't very democratic, but we're just really desperate for more money. We're also trying to make you forget that xAI is funded by Middle East non-democratic governments. Heck, we'll even buy compute from China if we can sell Anthropic models there.
>we'll even buy compute from China if we can sell Anthropic models there.
Considering that Anthropic mass-bans Chinese users accounts based on using VPN (used to circumvent the Chinese firewall) and then demands an ID or a residence permit of a country where Claude officially works to ensure that the user doesn't live in China, seems unlikely.
If the Chinese government tells Anthropic they can freely sell Claude in China, Dario is suddenly going to be kissing China's ass instead of saying how we can't let China win the AGI race for democracy and western values.
> funded by Middle East non-democratic governments
What's the problem here exactly? Are you insinuating any non-democratic government is bad and evil and only democratic governments are the correct and right way to govern? sort of like: "there is only one true prophet, and it's the one I follow, and all the others are false!"
Colossus 1 datacenter is the one using illegal power, is poisoning the air for poor communities near Memphis, and is potentially poisoning the water. It's likely the additional demand on the grid will cause massive blackouts during extreme weather events, putting residents at further risk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(supercomputer)#Envir...
So you can put Anthropic on your list of companies that like to talk big about safety, but when the rubber hits the road, profits matter more than safety.
Illegal is a strong term here. While the wiki link you included indicates there might be some permitting nuances, I've seen nothing claiming the power is "illegal."
xAI removed its illegal gas turbines and obtained permits for the others only after being sued by the Southern Environmental Law Center. They then built another unpermitted site (Colossus 2) across the state line in Mississippi, and they are being sued again. [0]
"The company began operations at its first site, Colossus 1, in June of 2024 and used as many as 35 unpermitted gas turbines to power the facility. Despite receiving intense public pushback over the use of illegal turbines and the lack of public input and transparency around Colossus 1, xAI officials said it planned on “copying and pasting” its unlawful turbine strategy to power Colossus 2."
"xAI removed its unpermitted turbines at the Colossus 1 data center after SELC, on behalf of the NAACP, sent a notice of intent to sue under the Clean Air Act. The company obtained permits for its remaining 15 turbines."
So I was just Googling this, and apparently most datacenters don't pay any state tax on revenue generated by said datacenter? Huge loophole if true, no wonder capital investment in datacenters is so high. [0]
Doubling the five-hour rate limits is merely a marketing stunt if the weekly rates are not also doubled. It simply means that you can reach the weekly limits in three days instead of five.
last week with claude i saturated a team premium seat at day 6 of its cycle, and a max 20x seat at day 4, plus ~$150 extra usage spend, with a 60hr work week where i am not even primarily an IC, as well as a codex 20x plan at day 3 with a personal project
What does your usage look like day to day? Are you using a low level amount all day long? I'm with the others here, I've never hit the weekly limit ever, only the hourly, and I consider myself a heavy user.
I dedicate a significant amount of time to defining the precise actions that agents should perform (PRD/ADR). I break down the feature sets into Milestones and slices (tasks). These tasks are small, well-defined, and scoped. I have a prompt template that the “architect” agent prepares whenever I want to initiate a new feature. This ensures that the prompt structure remains consistent and standardized over time. The generated prompt is then pasted to the “orchestrator,” which performs context discovery (using Repoprompt) and finalizes the plan then proceeds to launch subagents to do the work.
Based on the size and complexity of the task, as well as any inter-task dependencies, the orchestrator deploys one or more subagents (sometimes 5 or 6 subagents) to work on these mini tasks. Once all tasks are completed, the orchestrator initiates verification and launches a review workflow. This workflow uses the original prompt, acceptance criteria, repository internal guidelines, and relevant skills to conduct a thorough review of the agents’ work.
Typically, there are one or two review iterations, during which the review agent identifies any issues. Sometimes, I may also notice issues and have to "steer" the orchestrator. The time required for a slice to complete ranges from 30 minutes to 4 or 5 hours, depending on its size, complexity, and the number of subtasks it contains.
Only if I run about 3 such orchestration in parallel I can reach hourly limit.
I have found that it uses a lot more tokens if I give it a very detailed todo and loop over every task 1 by 1. I now keep it to phases with detailed tasks underneath and use /loop over the phases and it uses a lot less. I also manage the context windows and tend to clear it often to keep it under around 200k (or less depending on project size)
Yeah, I do that too. Essentially, the system I described begins working on a task that is small enough and clearly defined. Each “slice” in a milestone usually have 5-10 subtasks (for instance, Slice E1 has P1...P6 subtasks). The orchestrator then receives the prompt to implement E1-P1.
Same. I hit limits after 45 minutes. I'm on a measly Pro plan. I'm usually building small, open source projects, often from scratch. I only work on these projects in a 2-hour window in the morning. This is my "free time" development. I hope this change helps, because I was days away from switching back to Codex, though I like Claude Code a bit better these days.
I also hope that the fact I had OpenClaw in my sandbox once is not why I hit these limits so damn fast. I don't use it anymore and I've tried to rid my sandbox of anything "openclaw" but it is in my git history in various places on various projects. Claude doesn't seem to be transparent about this limitation.
For me personally, I have the basic Claude Code subscription that I use to rewind on some evenings or on weekend, to code a bit for 1-2 hours. I have like 3-5 session with it every week.
The 5h windows are frustrating because I can go through them quickly if I have a more complex task. I haven't yet met the weekly limit. I'd say there are many cases similar to mine.
I've found with opus 4.6 which im still stubbornly using i can burn about 10% of the weekly within a 5 hour window with my workflow.
Mentally i think about the weekly usage in terms of usage per day so about 14% per day which results in me not using that much early in the week so i can kinda "burn freely" later on. which leads me to a spot where usually on the final two days im sorta thinking about how can i expend that usage ive "saved".
the 5 hour windows make this harder, sometimes the final day of the week im trying to get that 10% in every 5 hour window of my waking hours and i HATE that, i wanna work when i am most productive, not around some ridiculous window of time, i dont wanna think "I am gonna be utilizing claude the most around 11am so i should send a dumb message to haiku to get my 5 hour window started at 7:30am so i can have it roll over at 12:30."
So im happy about this change sure. But it is 100% them creating a problem and pretending having some relief from that problem is them doing their users a favor. I understand they are doing it to lower peak hours usage and all that, I still despise it.
Anthropic needs any compute they can get. So if Elon wants to build orbital data centers Anthropic would be happy to run models on it. There isn't really any doubt Elon can build orbital data centers the question is if they are economical compared to earth based.
Help me understand why not? I know solar power generation in space, and "beaming" the power back, was a naive idea. But this would actually use the power up there, mostly for training, but also for inference.
That claim seems reasonable. I have zero knowledge of the economics of launching and maintaining satellites though.
Ehh, I think they are just "kissing the ring". This was part of the agreement for the terrestrial datacenter access, pretend like the space orbital compute is more than the boondoggle that it clearly is.
I want to be clear, I do think that one day something like that will exist, I just don't think it's anywhere close to being a reality, much like FSD.
Also it costs them, almost [0], nothing to say it and then later come up with some reason why they are no longer interested.
I don't think space compute is going to work out, but I would certainly say "yes happy to buy space compute from you in the future if you offer it at a good price"
It makes no sense. We're being presented with a forced choice -- put them in space, or put them in the middle of downtown Seattle.
This is stupid. I don't understand what's happening... specifically, what mental virus is spreading that lowers everybody's IQ by 10-20 points, evidently including my own. Put the data centers in the ocean, powered by solar and networked with Starlink or LEO. Put them in the desert. Put them 20 miles south of Nowhere, Idaho.
Because the US has levied high tariffs on solar cells, can't build their own solar cells economically enough, and has such a torrid permitting system that it can't build transmission lines. Natural gas is the only form of generation that's easy to permit outside cities (due to pipeline agreements and this admin fast-tracking natural gas generation approval) but few cities will allow one. DCs need to be built within low latency interconnect of urban areas or else they become uncompetitive.
Elon claims (which I take with a huge grain of salt because he's made endless broken promises in investor calls and interviews) that he disagrees with the administration's stance on solar and would use it to power his DCs if he could, but contends that permitting is a huge problem.
The US needs to figure out how to build again.
> This is stupid. I don't understand what's happening... specifically, what mental virus
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes"
What does that have to do with my point? Space-based data centers need solar cells too. They are just like terrestrial data centers, only more expensive. For every dollar you save on the PV array, you'll spend two more on radiators.
And you don't need permits in international waters, any more than you need them in orbit. Lease space on container ships.
The argument is that it's too hard to gain the necessary approvals on Earth such that space is faster and easier. Not sure I buy it fully (I do see it somewhat), but that's the argument.
I don't think this is giving up. He's getting inside information on how Claude works, and a huge stream of Claude usage data. This will all inform future grok development, IMO.
> Looks like Elon's finally giving up on XAI and just selling the compute
I don't think that's certain yet, but I do think that the open-source models like Gemma and Qwen are getting so good so fast that even Anthropic has real risk around the long-term value of their models and tooling.
Basically, if I'm Anthropic or xAI, I try to get revenue whenever and wherever possible and see what sticks. There's no value in playing for monopolistic control when everything is so volatile.
I don't know if it relates to the same data centers, but this also comes hours after several still recent Grok models were deprecated at short notice. Grok 4.1 Fast is the cheapest way to do research on X (cheaper than the X API!) and it's gone on May 15: https://docs.x.ai/developers/models - freeing up compute to sell?
The details are secret. It very well could be wasted GPU time but Anthropic could have made a killer offering as well.
I'm just speculating, but a particularly killer offering Elon wouldnt be able to refuse would be if Anthropic agreed to give them some training data / technology.
I think so, but that's also really great because I frequently run into the five hour caps, but very rarely use my entire weekly allotment. There are lots of situations where I do things like write the plan for all the work that has to get done, and then set a reminder to execute the plan after I get home, when I'm done making dinner (because e.g. my five hour cap ends at 6pm). Higher caps for the five hour period is a lot more convenient.
For context, xAI GPU utilization is at 11% and they're also expanding.[0] Renting one datacenter to Anthropic doesn't mean that they would be shutting xAI / Grok down.
Oh. Just as I'm in the process of migrating to Pi+Qwen (local). This was probably going to be my last month on the Pro sub as I'm seriously fed up with the limits and degradation that started weeks after I signed up. Let's see how this shakes out.
> First, we’re doubling Claude Code’s five-hour rate limits for Pro, Max, Team, and seat-based Enterprise plans.
The fine-print-omission appears to be that weekly limits are not doubled. The progressive 5-hour rate limit shrinking was indeed an efficiency blocker that finally convinced me to cancel, but being only able to get 4 full sessions a week as opposed to 8 doesn't compell me to resubscribe.
For my hobbyist purposes Deepseek v4 Flash has replaced Claude Code because I was also sick of hitting 5 hour limits with Claude. Right now, the only thing I miss from Claude is multi-modal image support. I can work around no image support since I can use v4 Flash all day and spend around $1. I am aware Deepseek is currently discounting their API at 75% off so I may try out another provider once the discount is gone at the end of the month.
At this point if feels like if you properly scope your work open weight LLMs are adequate.
What's the current status of the 'biggest computer wins' vs. specialized proprietary research/data in the AI arms race? People had such high hopes for xAI because of the monster machine Elon built. Or has xAI just turned over too much staff too quickly?
You realize natural gas is one of the more environmentally friendly methods of generating power. Lots of work went into moving to natural gas generation to improve the environmental impact for electricity generation.
If you can make up an inconsequential arbitrary rationalization to not use a service then I’m sure you can do the opposite to convince yourself to use it.
That’s what virtue signaling is I guess - the action you’re taking is pointless, the only point is to tell everyone you’re taking it therefore feed the narrative forward?
The entire economy runs off gas turbines though this is the thing you boycott?
Obviously I’m virtue signaling, and I hope instilling a feeling of shame in people who support businesses that contribute to climate change.
But more than that, the emissions generated by the Colossus data centers are far worse than typical combined-cycle gas plants or data centers that buy renewable: these turbines emit NOx, fine particulates, carbon monoxide, and formaldehyde into a population-dense area.
Deciding not to spend money with a company you don't like is not pointless. The point is that you're not participating in something that you judge to be wrong.
The world is full of things I feel are wrong yet have near zero power to stop. That does not mean I should willingly support those things.
It may be more productive to ask what is right with burning fossil fuels for electricity right in the middle of marginalized communities that have to bear the cost of this pollution for AI slop.
I want to believe. A couple of weeks ago I fell into this "trap", they offered a similar thing. I subscribed to the Pro Plan. Had fun for a couple of weeks and then I entered frustration phase. I love the product, but I hate those up and downs. My rant made it to HN front page - which I am not happy of. I want the stuff I build to be seen on the front page.
Models are a commodity, let's say Elon actually figures out building datacenters in space, or maybe he continues to be the leader of building earth based datacenters. Probably better business to not have yourself as your only customer. Dogfood, and open it to all.
I mean, as someone who has the Max 20x plan and uses it only outside work (so I could not hit anywhere close to the weekly limit at all), I'll gladly take the 5-hour limit doubling.
My first impression to this post is "what the hell are they thinking?", but actually it seems like a decent move by them.
They basically made it so that normal users can better utilize their plan while not benefitting the backgroundagentmaxxers and stealth openclaw abusers in the ranks of their subscription audience. Making their plan more attractive to the people they actually want to sell to.
Hopefully this leads to a loosening of harness restrictions later.
What's going to be the hit on our atmosphere when the data centers re enter? I guess it won't matter as the AI will replace the humans by then for the GDP and tax base.
Reading the comments here again surprises me how in an anti-Elon bubble most folks are. They are renting out spare Colossus 1 capacity. Colossus 2 is still coming online. Orbital data centers are really the plan in the next few years. XAi is still behind, but not a disaster considering how late they entered (and Elon’s unfortunate fixation on anime characters).
SpaceX is extremely uniquely positioned to crush the rest of the world combined in order to orbital data centers.
AFAIK "orbital data centers" are a bunch of nonsense.
1. GPUs create heat. There's no efficient way to get rid of the heat in space (vacuum is an insulator).
2. Die-shrink makes modern processors and memory more and more susceptible to radiation; shielding is possible, but adds cost + mass (which adds cost)
> SpaceX is extremely uniquely positioned to crush the rest of the world combined in order to orbital data centers
Sure, as long as your data center is 3x4m - size of a Starlink satellite (think Spinal Tap Stone Henge) . Anything bigger than that (i.e. actual data center sized) is going to require some assembly.
I've heard TeslaBot is good at folding shirts, and serving drinks (at least while teleoperated) - perhaps it can help?
You're not going to fit a data center in a Starship either, unless you are talking a Tiny Corp Exabox "data center in a shipping container" sized one. Even something that small (1MW) would still need 4x the solar capacity of the ISS, and therefore likely some assembly required. Then you've got latency from satellite to satellite ...
In any case, it appears that Musk can't even generate enough AI demand to utilize his own ground based data center. Maybe he can add "data centers in space" to part of his Mars colonization plan. Maybe have Tesla Bots driving around in Cybertrucks too ?
I struggle to understand how orbital data centers can make sense. Is it mainly for continuous solar energy? Surely this can't be enough to offset the costs of launching?
If Anthropic and SpaceX and OpenAI are all going public this year then this is a clever move to stick it to OpenAI. However, I'm kinda sus of my Claude subscription now
Hopefully they will work on response time. I've been noticing it taking 5+ minutes for each turn, for not complicated requests. Seems to vary based on time of day too.
> First, we’re doubling Claude Code’s five-hour rate limits for Pro, Max, Team, and seat-based Enterprise plans.
Ok I guess, this was a bit of a hassle, but you're not increasing my weekly allowance, you're just not annoying me as often.
> Second, we’re removing the peak hours limit reduction on Claude Code for Pro and Max accounts.
It wasn't a limit reduction (as in, I didn't have a lower 5-hour limit), it was "tokens are more expensive" and it ate my weekly limits faster. This should never have been instituted to begin with.
> Third, we’re raising our API rate limits considerably for Claude Opus models, as shown in the table below:
Meh.
This is why I don't care for all the "it's a subscription, you're free to not use it!" arguments here. It's not an all-you-can-eat subscription with some generous fair use limits, it's a "X tokens per month for $Y", and they keep lowering the X unilaterally and in secret.
> As part of this agreement, we have also expressed interest in partnering with SpaceX to develop multiple gigawatts of orbital AI compute capacity.
Disgusting. For an allegedly not evil company, they’re very willing to pollute our night skies as well as partner up with a CEO who has been fanning the flames of extremism (particularly the emboldened racists / supremacists of the far right).
I’m sure that’ll comfort all the minorities affected by the rampant amplification of extremists on Twitter. I don’t disagree those are big achievements but also they’re irrelevant to those who feel the impact of Musk’s own extremism, and their lives would be unchanged if none of the Musk companies existed. If you’re unaffected by racism then it’s going to feel easy to only look at the positives of Musk.
I doubt it'll ever happen because heat dissipation will be a big problem, but this is likely in response to the proliferation of data centers. I would rather have data centers in space than convert countryside to concrete and metal jungles.
I was motivated to post this because I was just reading a thread where many users were praising Valve and GabeN for how their company is run, but I'm curious to read more about A & B.
orbital data center == scam company. if you don't understand physics or economics why should i trust you in simpler things. if you do understand are are lying why should i trust you. anthropic and their holier than though SV brand is cooked.
The politics and economics of Musk throwing some support towards Anthropic is interesting (samma is probably pissed).
But, if you will pardon a little rant: I hate the idea of subscription inference plans and also 'dumping' by subsidizing non-profitable products. Inferencing should be pay as you go and dumping illegal.
Anthropic renting out the data center Elon built for Grok is the kind of plot twist you can't make up.
Pretty smart for SpaceX though. They’re turning an asset they made for a money-pit (Grok) into probably a major source of revenue ahead of their IPO.
We all remember 2 weeks ago when SpaceX bought $10B of Cursor services. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47855293
Since Cursor often relies on Claude models, some of those services will flow back to their own datacenter compute. Especially if there's, lets call it, "customer demand loadbalancing optimization agreements" that makes those Cursor services prioritize Claude models using the app keys that get load-balanced onto the SpaceX datacenter.
Did SpaceX just spend $10B to rent out its own datacenter, juicing their recurring revenue metrics with their own AI services investment?
I don't think it's the conspiracy theory that you're making it out to be.
It is publicly known that the vast majority of deals in the AI space are circular in nature without the need for explicitly encoding any of it in a legal contract or even tacit agreements.
e.g. Nvidia has invested significantly in many AI companies including both Anthropic and OpenAI which rely heavily on Nvidia's hardware and will undoubtedly use some of said investment towards that end.
Nvidia and Oracle are already public companies, they're just aiming for their next quarterly statements.
SpaceX is getting dressed for their debutante ball and is putting on the makeup to make a grand entrance on the auction floor.
Is there a difference? I legitimately have no idea. You are right that we can add another entry to the list of interconnected circular dealmakings. All this ain't gonna end well next time the music stops playing.
I see it more of lets make money off the hardware we are not using anymore.
From Elon on X: ... After that, I was ok leasing Colossus 1 to Anthropic, as SpaceXAI had already moved training to Colossus 2.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2052069691372478511
Its not even that. Its better to be involved in the game with a leader/help out a competitor who is competing against someone you don't like and don't want them to win, than to sit it out.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
It was pretty obvious to me that the merger was a way of quietly shutting xAI down in a way that keeps investors happy. With it also being used as a vehicle to offload the Twitter debt to the public, he certainly has good accountants.
Yep - and in the meantime it's an asset of SpaceX to boost their IPO price, as long as this is done before people realize that xAI is apparently becoming a datacenter company not an AI one.
Then you've got SpaceX buying 1200 cybertrucks from Tesla, so it's serving as failure laundering vehicle for all his endeavors.
Not a merger, right, unless I missed something (admittedly skimming).
Yeah it's corporate subprime. Bundle a load of overpriced "assets" with made up valuations into something that's actually valuable, then shove it on the public markets so everyone has to buy it in their index trackers.
I'm just relieved to read that it isn't in fact...in space.
Plot twist but makes perfect sense for both companies.
Anthropic gets the compute they so desperately need to keep growing. Elon rents out compute that xAI couldn't make use of due to little demand for Grok. SpaceX gets revenue on the books for IPO.
PS. I want to translate this part:
To real speak:>we'll even buy compute from China if we can sell Anthropic models there.
Considering that Anthropic mass-bans Chinese users accounts based on using VPN (used to circumvent the Chinese firewall) and then demands an ID or a residence permit of a country where Claude officially works to ensure that the user doesn't live in China, seems unlikely.
If the Chinese government tells Anthropic they can freely sell Claude in China, Dario is suddenly going to be kissing China's ass instead of saying how we can't let China win the AGI race for democracy and western values.
After they told the US government no on a very large contract. I find that hard to believe.
Don't forget the whole, "maybe this will make it easier for xAi to distill anthropic models and we can make another attempt at mechahitler"
Thank you for the "real speak" section. Accurate and hilarious.
> funded by Middle East non-democratic governments
What's the problem here exactly? Are you insinuating any non-democratic government is bad and evil and only democratic governments are the correct and right way to govern? sort of like: "there is only one true prophet, and it's the one I follow, and all the others are false!"
No, I didn't say that.
My point is that Anthropic cares a lot about "democracy" but will buy compute from a data center mostly funded by non-democratic nations.
Who do you think is the sources of funding for Anthropic's lead investors?
Your tone suggests I'm unaware of the fact that Middle East money heavily invests in American AI companies and data centers.
Colossus 1 datacenter is the one using illegal power, is poisoning the air for poor communities near Memphis, and is potentially poisoning the water. It's likely the additional demand on the grid will cause massive blackouts during extreme weather events, putting residents at further risk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(supercomputer)#Envir...
So you can put Anthropic on your list of companies that like to talk big about safety, but when the rubber hits the road, profits matter more than safety.
Illegal is a strong term here. While the wiki link you included indicates there might be some permitting nuances, I've seen nothing claiming the power is "illegal."
xAI removed its illegal gas turbines and obtained permits for the others only after being sued by the Southern Environmental Law Center. They then built another unpermitted site (Colossus 2) across the state line in Mississippi, and they are being sued again. [0]
"The company began operations at its first site, Colossus 1, in June of 2024 and used as many as 35 unpermitted gas turbines to power the facility. Despite receiving intense public pushback over the use of illegal turbines and the lack of public input and transparency around Colossus 1, xAI officials said it planned on “copying and pasting” its unlawful turbine strategy to power Colossus 2."
"xAI removed its unpermitted turbines at the Colossus 1 data center after SELC, on behalf of the NAACP, sent a notice of intent to sue under the Clean Air Act. The company obtained permits for its remaining 15 turbines."
[0] https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...
Oh no, they ran a power plant! how scary! the world will end.
The ethics are questionable, legal or not. Anthropic are tarnishing their image again here.
Not sure how much it hurts then compared to blocking openclaw though.
How would a data centre poison the water? They don’t produce any chemicals or do anything.
So I was just Googling this, and apparently most datacenters don't pay any state tax on revenue generated by said datacenter? Huge loophole if true, no wonder capital investment in datacenters is so high. [0]
[0] https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/regulations/how-are-data...
I like how you said "googling this", but then didn't actually read the article you linked.
Doubling the five-hour rate limits is merely a marketing stunt if the weekly rates are not also doubled. It simply means that you can reach the weekly limits in three days instead of five.
I have never come close to my weekly limit, but have hit my hourly limit frequently.
For me it's the opposite. I almost never hit hourly limit, but I hit weekly limit in about 5 days.
Would be more meaningful if everyone said what plan they are on, as there are 3 different ones that users could be discussing.
last week with claude i saturated a team premium seat at day 6 of its cycle, and a max 20x seat at day 4, plus ~$150 extra usage spend, with a 60hr work week where i am not even primarily an IC, as well as a codex 20x plan at day 3 with a personal project
I'm on $200 Max plan
What does your usage look like day to day? Are you using a low level amount all day long? I'm with the others here, I've never hit the weekly limit ever, only the hourly, and I consider myself a heavy user.
I dedicate a significant amount of time to defining the precise actions that agents should perform (PRD/ADR). I break down the feature sets into Milestones and slices (tasks). These tasks are small, well-defined, and scoped. I have a prompt template that the “architect” agent prepares whenever I want to initiate a new feature. This ensures that the prompt structure remains consistent and standardized over time. The generated prompt is then pasted to the “orchestrator,” which performs context discovery (using Repoprompt) and finalizes the plan then proceeds to launch subagents to do the work.
Based on the size and complexity of the task, as well as any inter-task dependencies, the orchestrator deploys one or more subagents (sometimes 5 or 6 subagents) to work on these mini tasks. Once all tasks are completed, the orchestrator initiates verification and launches a review workflow. This workflow uses the original prompt, acceptance criteria, repository internal guidelines, and relevant skills to conduct a thorough review of the agents’ work.
Typically, there are one or two review iterations, during which the review agent identifies any issues. Sometimes, I may also notice issues and have to "steer" the orchestrator. The time required for a slice to complete ranges from 30 minutes to 4 or 5 hours, depending on its size, complexity, and the number of subtasks it contains.
Only if I run about 3 such orchestration in parallel I can reach hourly limit.
I have found that it uses a lot more tokens if I give it a very detailed todo and loop over every task 1 by 1. I now keep it to phases with detailed tasks underneath and use /loop over the phases and it uses a lot less. I also manage the context windows and tend to clear it often to keep it under around 200k (or less depending on project size)
Yeah, I do that too. Essentially, the system I described begins working on a task that is small enough and clearly defined. Each “slice” in a milestone usually have 5-10 subtasks (for instance, Slice E1 has P1...P6 subtasks). The orchestrator then receives the prompt to implement E1-P1.
Same. I hit limits after 45 minutes. I'm on a measly Pro plan. I'm usually building small, open source projects, often from scratch. I only work on these projects in a 2-hour window in the morning. This is my "free time" development. I hope this change helps, because I was days away from switching back to Codex, though I like Claude Code a bit better these days.
I also hope that the fact I had OpenClaw in my sandbox once is not why I hit these limits so damn fast. I don't use it anymore and I've tried to rid my sandbox of anything "openclaw" but it is in my git history in various places on various projects. Claude doesn't seem to be transparent about this limitation.
Are you using haiku for most tasks? I'm in the Google ecosystem so I'm curious how it is on the other side.
Nope, I use Opus 4.7, mostly. Sometimes Sonnet 4.6 if I’m trying to use less tokens.
I hit my weekly limit in 3 days this week. Irregularly do in 5. With the top MAX sub.
same, I struggle to use more than half of my weekly, even if I max out my 5-hour windows regularly during the day.
For me personally, I have the basic Claude Code subscription that I use to rewind on some evenings or on weekend, to code a bit for 1-2 hours. I have like 3-5 session with it every week.
The 5h windows are frustrating because I can go through them quickly if I have a more complex task. I haven't yet met the weekly limit. I'd say there are many cases similar to mine.
Exactly, the weekly limits are the real limiting factor. If you really push it, you can easily hit the weekly $200/mo Max limit in a day.
I've found with opus 4.6 which im still stubbornly using i can burn about 10% of the weekly within a 5 hour window with my workflow.
Mentally i think about the weekly usage in terms of usage per day so about 14% per day which results in me not using that much early in the week so i can kinda "burn freely" later on. which leads me to a spot where usually on the final two days im sorta thinking about how can i expend that usage ive "saved".
the 5 hour windows make this harder, sometimes the final day of the week im trying to get that 10% in every 5 hour window of my waking hours and i HATE that, i wanna work when i am most productive, not around some ridiculous window of time, i dont wanna think "I am gonna be utilizing claude the most around 11am so i should send a dumb message to haiku to get my 5 hour window started at 7:30am so i can have it roll over at 12:30."
So im happy about this change sure. But it is 100% them creating a problem and pretending having some relief from that problem is them doing their users a favor. I understand they are doing it to lower peak hours usage and all that, I still despise it.
Who cares about rate limits if they serve your prompt using dumbed down model.
> As part of this agreement, we have also expressed interest in partnering with SpaceX to develop multiple gigawatts of orbital AI compute capacity.
Anthropic is either taking this space business more serious than the general public, or posting this sentence was part of the deal to get the compute.
Anthropic needs any compute they can get. So if Elon wants to build orbital data centers Anthropic would be happy to run models on it. There isn't really any doubt Elon can build orbital data centers the question is if they are economical compared to earth based.
I love how this line of thinking completely avoids the issue re. improvements in local models.
I suppose if you are desperate to justify a large investment this what you would do - frame the story in a particular way.
What are you talking about
There is no doubt that it's not a serious idea.
Help me understand why not? I know solar power generation in space, and "beaming" the power back, was a naive idea. But this would actually use the power up there, mostly for training, but also for inference.
That claim seems reasonable. I have zero knowledge of the economics of launching and maintaining satellites though.
Ehh, I think they are just "kissing the ring". This was part of the agreement for the terrestrial datacenter access, pretend like the space orbital compute is more than the boondoggle that it clearly is.
I want to be clear, I do think that one day something like that will exist, I just don't think it's anywhere close to being a reality, much like FSD.
Also it costs them, almost [0], nothing to say it and then later come up with some reason why they are no longer interested.
[0] Maybe a little bit of respect
most of the big tech ceos have mentioned this.
> or posting this sentence was part of the deal to get the compute
All it says is expressed interest.
That's like asking a casual how are you...
I don't think space compute is going to work out, but I would certainly say "yes happy to buy space compute from you in the future if you offer it at a good price"
If it happens it happens, if not, it doesn't.
It makes no sense. We're being presented with a forced choice -- put them in space, or put them in the middle of downtown Seattle.
This is stupid. I don't understand what's happening... specifically, what mental virus is spreading that lowers everybody's IQ by 10-20 points, evidently including my own. Put the data centers in the ocean, powered by solar and networked with Starlink or LEO. Put them in the desert. Put them 20 miles south of Nowhere, Idaho.
But space?!
Because the US has levied high tariffs on solar cells, can't build their own solar cells economically enough, and has such a torrid permitting system that it can't build transmission lines. Natural gas is the only form of generation that's easy to permit outside cities (due to pipeline agreements and this admin fast-tracking natural gas generation approval) but few cities will allow one. DCs need to be built within low latency interconnect of urban areas or else they become uncompetitive.
Elon claims (which I take with a huge grain of salt because he's made endless broken promises in investor calls and interviews) that he disagrees with the administration's stance on solar and would use it to power his DCs if he could, but contends that permitting is a huge problem.
The US needs to figure out how to build again.
> This is stupid. I don't understand what's happening... specifically, what mental virus
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes"
What does that have to do with my point? Space-based data centers need solar cells too. They are just like terrestrial data centers, only more expensive. For every dollar you save on the PV array, you'll spend two more on radiators.
And you don't need permits in international waters, any more than you need them in orbit. Lease space on container ships.
The argument is that it's too hard to gain the necessary approvals on Earth such that space is faster and easier. Not sure I buy it fully (I do see it somewhat), but that's the argument.
It’s weird to not take this seriously. It’s obvious it’s serious and they’re pursuing it.
>Higher usage limits
>The following three changes—all effective today—are aimed at improving the experience of using Claude for our most dedicated customers.
>First, we’re doubling Claude Code’s five-hour rate limits for Pro, Max, Team, and seat-based Enterprise plans.
>Second, we’re removing the peak hours limit reduction on Claude Code for Pro and Max accounts.
>Third, we’re raising our API rate limits considerably for Claude Opus models,
Looks like Elon's finally giving up on XAI and just selling the compute
I don't think this is giving up. He's getting inside information on how Claude works, and a huge stream of Claude usage data. This will all inform future grok development, IMO.
> Looks like Elon's finally giving up on XAI and just selling the compute
I don't think that's certain yet, but I do think that the open-source models like Gemma and Qwen are getting so good so fast that even Anthropic has real risk around the long-term value of their models and tooling.
Basically, if I'm Anthropic or xAI, I try to get revenue whenever and wherever possible and see what sticks. There's no value in playing for monopolistic control when everything is so volatile.
There's always money in the giggawatt datacenter
I don't know if it relates to the same data centers, but this also comes hours after several still recent Grok models were deprecated at short notice. Grok 4.1 Fast is the cheapest way to do research on X (cheaper than the X API!) and it's gone on May 15: https://docs.x.ai/developers/models - freeing up compute to sell?
Fuck, I loved grok 4.1, it was a really capable model for the money.
I'd run agents consuming hundreds of millions of tokens for less than a hundred dollars.
Unlikely, because xAI had huge amount of overcapacity.
The details are secret. It very well could be wasted GPU time but Anthropic could have made a killer offering as well.
I'm just speculating, but a particularly killer offering Elon wouldnt be able to refuse would be if Anthropic agreed to give them some training data / technology.
Billions in revenue just before your IPO isn't a bad deal either.
The icing on the cake for Elon is that it strengthens the competition to OpenAI.
Or is that actually his main motivation. Hard to know. Either way it's a win win win for him.
Probably a good idea in all honesty. xAI is a deeply unserious lab
From a technical standpoint xAI is basically Gemini team B who were give A+ salaries to join the company.
But even then, I suspect their hands were tied in some areas because Elon had some expectations from his AI.
Did Google outbid Elon for team A? Or A team just don't like Elon?
There's only so much determinism you can create when you try not to filter (read CENSOR) your LLM.
No I don't ever give up. I would have to be dead or completely incapacitated.
-Elon
https://x.com/XFreeze/status/2012390928221094335
Or he just got leverage on a competitor
They're doubling the five hour limits, but no mention about the weekly limit. So overall it's the same maximum usage, right?
I think so, but that's also really great because I frequently run into the five hour caps, but very rarely use my entire weekly allotment. There are lots of situations where I do things like write the plan for all the work that has to get done, and then set a reminder to execute the plan after I get home, when I'm done making dinner (because e.g. my five hour cap ends at 6pm). Higher caps for the five hour period is a lot more convenient.
I (and many others) are the opposite. I run out of quota is 4-5 days. Generally no issues with the 5hr cap. ($200 sub)
Some get the reset, some don't it seems :(
"All of [SpaceX]'s compute capacity at Colossus 1"
SpaceX/xAI also has Colossus 2, with double or more the GPUs
Seems xAI will still be around
I wonder if it's just Elon realising that xAI can't beat OpenAI and thus deciding to give all his compute capacity to Anthropic instead.
Certainly an interesting day for xAI.
Building datacenters plays to his strengths. It's a good partnership if he can stomach it.
As long as it keeps Altman awake at night, it's all good I believe for Elon.
I would think that stomaching Musk would be the hard part. Just goes to show how compute-constrained Anthropic is at this time.
He literally did a Nazi salute on stage, twice! Check the video, and tell me what you see.
edit: https://giphy.com/gifs/elon-musk-nazi-salute-8W0ItVv7T1kRdwb...
If it is a Nazi salute, it's a real bad one !
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
https://old.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/1i7w4nz/comparison_of...
meh, he's no Graham Platner
For context, xAI GPU utilization is at 11% and they're also expanding.[0] Renting one datacenter to Anthropic doesn't mean that they would be shutting xAI / Grok down.
[0] https://wccftech.com/xai-using-just-11-percent-gpus-while-me...
Oh. Just as I'm in the process of migrating to Pi+Qwen (local). This was probably going to be my last month on the Pro sub as I'm seriously fed up with the limits and degradation that started weeks after I signed up. Let's see how this shakes out.
> First, we’re doubling Claude Code’s five-hour rate limits for Pro, Max, Team, and seat-based Enterprise plans.
The fine-print-omission appears to be that weekly limits are not doubled. The progressive 5-hour rate limit shrinking was indeed an efficiency blocker that finally convinced me to cancel, but being only able to get 4 full sessions a week as opposed to 8 doesn't compell me to resubscribe.
For my hobbyist purposes Deepseek v4 Flash has replaced Claude Code because I was also sick of hitting 5 hour limits with Claude. Right now, the only thing I miss from Claude is multi-modal image support. I can work around no image support since I can use v4 Flash all day and spend around $1. I am aware Deepseek is currently discounting their API at 75% off so I may try out another provider once the discount is gone at the end of the month.
At this point if feels like if you properly scope your work open weight LLMs are adequate.
For those who haven't been following the build out.
xAI has added about 500MW of nvidia gpu capacity in ~April
and will add another 500MW before the end of the year totaling about 2GW.
Source on this?
Following various X posts, asking Grok to check my memory. https://grokipedia.com/page/Colossus_supercomputer backs this up.
What's the current status of the 'biggest computer wins' vs. specialized proprietary research/data in the AI arms race? People had such high hopes for xAI because of the monster machine Elon built. Or has xAI just turned over too much staff too quickly?
Well, this sucks :/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(supercomputer)#Envir...
One of the reasons I refuse to use xAI’s models is because of the outsized negative environmental impacts of the methane gas turbines.
Now I have to avoid Claude too.
You realize natural gas is one of the more environmentally friendly methods of generating power. Lots of work went into moving to natural gas generation to improve the environmental impact for electricity generation.
This is nothing like burning coal.
This natural gas burning is suited too close to where people live.
You do understand natural gas burns very clean? People burn it in their houses to cook with it!
If you can make up an inconsequential arbitrary rationalization to not use a service then I’m sure you can do the opposite to convince yourself to use it.
That’s what virtue signaling is I guess - the action you’re taking is pointless, the only point is to tell everyone you’re taking it therefore feed the narrative forward?
The entire economy runs off gas turbines though this is the thing you boycott?
Obviously I’m virtue signaling, and I hope instilling a feeling of shame in people who support businesses that contribute to climate change.
But more than that, the emissions generated by the Colossus data centers are far worse than typical combined-cycle gas plants or data centers that buy renewable: these turbines emit NOx, fine particulates, carbon monoxide, and formaldehyde into a population-dense area.
I thought people knew about this already. Post from last year: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/12/xai-data-center/
Sorry, what?
Deciding not to spend money with a company you don't like is not pointless. The point is that you're not participating in something that you judge to be wrong.
The world is full of things I feel are wrong yet have near zero power to stop. That does not mean I should willingly support those things.
gas turbines generally are for peaking. Not for base load.
Hopefully Elon lets you into his glass bubble when the s** cooks on the fan.
Why?
I think he's referring to the fact that Colossus is powered by fossil fuels.
literally the entire economy is powered by fossil fuels
As far as electricity goes, the US is currently 50/50 fossil fuels and renewables (solar, wind, etc).
What’s wrong with burning fossil fuels for electricity?
Maybe because nature put them in the ground for a reason?
Minor risk that taking what took 200 million years to put into the ground out in a few hundred years?
It may be more productive to ask what is right with burning fossil fuels for electricity right in the middle of marginalized communities that have to bear the cost of this pollution for AI slop.
Oh is this the polluting gas powered data centre Elon made, that's making local residents unhealthy ?
This might be a good time to drop Claude.
I want to believe. A couple of weeks ago I fell into this "trap", they offered a similar thing. I subscribed to the Pro Plan. Had fun for a couple of weeks and then I entered frustration phase. I love the product, but I hate those up and downs. My rant made it to HN front page - which I am not happy of. I want the stuff I build to be seen on the front page.
Wouldn't trust them not to take a copy and use it to distill. Wonder what security there is
As a bonus, it looks like they reset limits a few minutes ago -- I went from 53% of my weekly allotment to 0%.
Not for me. 2 Claude Max 20x accounts here both at high usage on weekly allotments.
Models are a commodity, let's say Elon actually figures out building datacenters in space, or maybe he continues to be the leader of building earth based datacenters. Probably better business to not have yourself as your only customer. Dogfood, and open it to all.
The first is impossible and the second isn't happening and won't happen.
I wouldn’t say impossible but not effective
the leader of building earth-based datacenters lol
what are we even talking about
Anthropic taketh and Anthropic giveth.
Exactly.
Today they say this, then tomorrow they'll silently reduce limits and argue with anyone who calls them on it.
I mean, as someone who has the Max 20x plan and uses it only outside work (so I could not hit anywhere close to the weekly limit at all), I'll gladly take the 5-hour limit doubling.
My first impression to this post is "what the hell are they thinking?", but actually it seems like a decent move by them.
They basically made it so that normal users can better utilize their plan while not benefitting the backgroundagentmaxxers and stealth openclaw abusers in the ranks of their subscription audience. Making their plan more attractive to the people they actually want to sell to.
Hopefully this leads to a loosening of harness restrictions later.
Hopefully this filters through to Copilot's recent rate-limits
For a space that supposedly had "no moat", the number of players still competing for frontier models seems to be shrinking pretty fast
What's going to be the hit on our atmosphere when the data centers re enter? I guess it won't matter as the AI will replace the humans by then for the GDP and tax base.
Reading the comments here again surprises me how in an anti-Elon bubble most folks are. They are renting out spare Colossus 1 capacity. Colossus 2 is still coming online. Orbital data centers are really the plan in the next few years. XAi is still behind, but not a disaster considering how late they entered (and Elon’s unfortunate fixation on anime characters).
SpaceX is extremely uniquely positioned to crush the rest of the world combined in order to orbital data centers.
AFAIK "orbital data centers" are a bunch of nonsense.
1. GPUs create heat. There's no efficient way to get rid of the heat in space (vacuum is an insulator). 2. Die-shrink makes modern processors and memory more and more susceptible to radiation; shielding is possible, but adds cost + mass (which adds cost)
> SpaceX is extremely uniquely positioned to crush the rest of the world combined in order to orbital data centers
Sure, as long as your data center is 3x4m - size of a Starlink satellite (think Spinal Tap Stone Henge) . Anything bigger than that (i.e. actual data center sized) is going to require some assembly.
I've heard TeslaBot is good at folding shirts, and serving drinks (at least while teleoperated) - perhaps it can help?
Orbital DCs is blocked on starship because they _arent_ doing starlink sized satellites.
You're not going to fit a data center in a Starship either, unless you are talking a Tiny Corp Exabox "data center in a shipping container" sized one. Even something that small (1MW) would still need 4x the solar capacity of the ISS, and therefore likely some assembly required. Then you've got latency from satellite to satellite ...
In any case, it appears that Musk can't even generate enough AI demand to utilize his own ground based data center. Maybe he can add "data centers in space" to part of his Mars colonization plan. Maybe have Tesla Bots driving around in Cybertrucks too ?
I struggle to understand how orbital data centers can make sense. Is it mainly for continuous solar energy? Surely this can't be enough to offset the costs of launching?
See the recent Dwarkesh interview with Elon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYXbuik3dgA
If Anthropic and SpaceX and OpenAI are all going public this year then this is a clever move to stick it to OpenAI. However, I'm kinda sus of my Claude subscription now
I would have preferred an increase in the weekly limits instead of the 5-hour limits.
Hopefully they will work on response time. I've been noticing it taking 5+ minutes for each turn, for not complicated requests. Seems to vary based on time of day too.
xAI (part of SpaceX) using just 11 percent of GPUs[1]
1. https://wccftech.com/xai-using-just-11-percent-gpus-while-me...
So now Elon Musk gets to read all of our Claude conversations?? :-(
I mean... seems like a no-brainer
> First, we’re doubling Claude Code’s five-hour rate limits for Pro, Max, Team, and seat-based Enterprise plans.
Ok I guess, this was a bit of a hassle, but you're not increasing my weekly allowance, you're just not annoying me as often.
> Second, we’re removing the peak hours limit reduction on Claude Code for Pro and Max accounts.
It wasn't a limit reduction (as in, I didn't have a lower 5-hour limit), it was "tokens are more expensive" and it ate my weekly limits faster. This should never have been instituted to begin with.
> Third, we’re raising our API rate limits considerably for Claude Opus models, as shown in the table below:
Meh.
This is why I don't care for all the "it's a subscription, you're free to not use it!" arguments here. It's not an all-you-can-eat subscription with some generous fair use limits, it's a "X tokens per month for $Y", and they keep lowering the X unilaterally and in secret.
> As part of this agreement, we have also expressed interest in partnering with SpaceX to develop multiple gigawatts of orbital AI compute capacity.
Disgusting. For an allegedly not evil company, they’re very willing to pollute our night skies as well as partner up with a CEO who has been fanning the flames of extremism (particularly the emboldened racists / supremacists of the far right).
CEO that accelerated eletric car industry by 10 years
CEO that accelerated space industry by 10+ years
CEO that accelerated HCI industry by 10 years
> CEO that accelerated eletric car industry by 10 years
China was doing this regardless. It was a national security issue for them.
I’m sure that’ll comfort all the minorities affected by the rampant amplification of extremists on Twitter. I don’t disagree those are big achievements but also they’re irrelevant to those who feel the impact of Musk’s own extremism, and their lives would be unchanged if none of the Musk companies existed. If you’re unaffected by racism then it’s going to feel easy to only look at the positives of Musk.
A person can do good and bad things.
Pablo Escobar built hospitals. Ted Bundy saved lives on a suicide hotline
so what?
Nobody is 100% evil
Musk helped dismantling USAID which leads to many people’s death.
I doubt it'll ever happen because heat dissipation will be a big problem, but this is likely in response to the proliferation of data centers. I would rather have data centers in space than convert countryside to concrete and metal jungles.
Once they send the cooling water up into orbit, it's gone for good
"HN pretends that companies have morals: Part 48,037,986"
Counterpoint: Valve
Which is kind of like the exception that proves the rule hahaha
You haven't been following the discourse around a) how Steam handles GenAI disclosures and b) how Steam handles forum/review moderation.
People haven't been saying "GabeN can do no wrong" for awhile.
I was motivated to post this because I was just reading a thread where many users were praising Valve and GabeN for how their company is run, but I'm curious to read more about A & B.
Valve isn't moral, they're just privately owned. CS cases have given them enough fuck-you money to rehabilitate their image in any way they see fit.
orbital data center == scam company. if you don't understand physics or economics why should i trust you in simpler things. if you do understand are are lying why should i trust you. anthropic and their holier than though SV brand is cooked.
Give them whatever they need. Time to go to the moon.
The politics and economics of Musk throwing some support towards Anthropic is interesting (samma is probably pissed).
But, if you will pardon a little rant: I hate the idea of subscription inference plans and also 'dumping' by subsidizing non-profitable products. Inferencing should be pay as you go and dumping illegal.