When Nvidia’s most powerful chips are already harder to get than a dinner reservation at Dorsia, the last thing CoreWeave and Nebius needed was another heavyweight cutting in line.
SpaceX’s exclusive partnership with Nvidia for its AI infrastructure buildout could bump Elon Musk’s rocket company to “the front of the line” for chip allocations, according to analysts at Bernstein. That’s a problem for the so-called neoclouds, the upstart AI-focused cloud providers whose entire business models depend on getting Nvidia silicon before everyone else.
The GPU queue just got longer
SpaceX announced in early August that it would exclusively use Nvidia chips to power its AI compute needs. CoreWeave and Nebius have each received $2 billion equity investments from Nvidia, investments that historically came with the implicit perk of preferential access to Nvidia’s latest and greatest hardware. Both companies have been among the first to deploy cutting-edge platforms like the GB200 NVL72 and Blackwell-based systems, giving them a competitive edge over hyperscalers that spread their chip procurement across multiple vendors.
Both CoreWeave and Nebius have targeted more than 5 GW of AI compute capacity by 2030. That kind of scale requires a steady, predictable flow of next-generation GPUs. Any delay in receiving new silicon doesn’t just slow expansion, it risks losing customers to competitors who can deliver compute capacity on time.
