SpaceX pens a new deal with Anthropic as Elon Musk sues competitor OpenAI for allegedly backtracking on its mission.

Anthropic has reached a deal to tap the computing resources of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, marking a detente with its one-time critic and a boost for both companies in the high-stakes artificial intelligence race.

Under the agreement announced on Wednesday, Anthropic will use the full computing power of SpaceX’s Colossus 1 facility in Memphis, Tennessee, which houses more than 220,000 Nvidia processors and will give the Claude chatbot maker 300 megawatts of new capacity within a month. That’s enough electricity to power more than 300,000 homes – as the Dario Amodei-led company seeks to boost the capacity of its Claude Pro and Claude Max AI assistants for subscribers.

The announcement comes as Anthropic held its developer day and unveiled a new feature for its Claude AI system called “dreaming”. The tool allows AI systems to review work between sessions, spot patterns, and update files that store user preferences and other context.

Available as a research preview, “dreaming” comes with software for managing agents, or AI programmes that perform tasks with little human involvement. Amodei has previously warned that AI could wipe out 50 percent of entry-level jobs in the next one to five years.

Buoyed by the extra capacity from the SpaceX deal and other similar recent agreements, Anthropic said it was doubling Claude Code’s rate limits for its paid plans, removing peak-hour usage caps for Pro and Max accounts, and sharply increasing the volume of requests developers can make to its Claude Opus models.

The company said it is also interested in working with SpaceX to develop multiple gigawatts of space-based orbital data centres – one of Musk’s key goals and a major driver behind SpaceX’s initial public offering – as the endeavour is expected to be highly capital-intensive and technically challenging.

In a statement on X, Musk said he made the decision to lease computing power to Anthropic after spending time with its leaders last week. Their work to ensure Anthropic’s Claude AI is “good for humanity” impressed him, he said.

“No one set off my evil detector,” wrote Musk, who is battling OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in court for allegedly breaching its mission to develop AI for the good of humanity and remain a nonprofit organisation.

OpenAI strain

Last week Musk alleged in court that by late 2022, Altman was trying to “steal the charity” and claimed that “it turned out to be true”.

Musk, who cofounded OpenAI, also claimed that OpenAI wouldn’t have existed without him. The world’s richest man said that he founded OpenAI following a conversation with Google cofounder Larry Page, which he felt lacked concern about AI safety.

“I said, ‘What if AI wipes out all humans?’ He said that would be fine so long as artificial intelligence survives. I said that was insane, that’s just crazy. And then he called me a ‘speciesist’ because I care about humans more than AI. … The reason OpenAI exists is because Larry Page called me a ‘speciesist.’ … What would be the opposite of Google? An open-source nonprofit.”

OpenAI’s lawyers claimed that Musk’s lawsuit was an attempt to undermine the Altman-led company in favour of his own xAI, now part of SpaceX.

Musk’s deal comes as the administration of United States President Donald Trump pens new agreements with other AI giants, excluding Anthropic.

On Tuesday, tech giants Microsoft, Google and Elon Musk’s xAI agreed to allow the federal government access to test their new artificial intelligence tools amid hacking concerns surrounding Anthropic’s technology.

Last week, the Department of Defense also announced a deal with 10 different AI giants to use their tech on classified networks. Anthropic was not part of that deal.

Moscow threatens retaliatory strikes if Ukraine attacks Russia during Victory Day commemorations.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it has warned diplomatic missions to promptly evacuate their staff from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in case Moscow launches a mass strike on the city in response to potential Ukrainian attempts to disrupt Russia’s May 9 Victory Day commemorations.

In a video posted on Telegram on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova urged diplomats to heed the Defence Ministry’s warning of a strike, issued on Monday, in the event of a Ukrainian attack during the commemorations of the Soviet Union’s victory against Nazi Germany in World War II and a military parade in Red Square.

“The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly urges the authorities of your country, the leadership of your organisation, to treat this statement with the utmost responsibility and ensure the timely evacuation from the city of Kyiv of the personnel of diplomatic and other representations in connection with the inevitability of a retaliatory strike on Kyiv by Russia’s Armed Forces,” Zakharova said.

Zakharova said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had made “aggressive and threatening statements” about disrupting the commemorations at a meeting of the European Political Community in Armenia on Monday.

“Several EU countries were present,” she said. “None of them reprimanded the ringleader of the Kyiv regime.”

‘This is telling’

In his remarks in Armenia, Zelenskyy noted a Russian announcement that the commemorations were being scaled down and taking place without military hardware for security reasons.

“It will be the first time in many, many years they cannot afford military equipment, and they fear drones may buzz over Red Square. This is telling,” he said.

Zelenskyy said Russia was redeploying air defences from its regions to around Moscow in preparation for the May 9 military parade, adding that the move creates space for more Ukrainian long-range attacks.

“This indicates that the Russian leadership is not preparing for the ceasefire that has been the subject of so many statements, and is more concerned about its parade in Moscow than about the rest of Russia,” Zelenskyy posted on X.

“At the same time, we observe that this creates additional opportunities for our long-range sanctions. We will define our corresponding priorities,” he added.

Meanwhile, both countries announced competing ceasefires before the event. Both sides have accused each other of breaching the unilateral ceasefire announced by Ukraine for May 6. Russia offered its own temporary truce for its Victory Day celebrations on May 9.

Paris Saint-Germain win both legs of their semifinal with Bayern Munich to take the tie 6-4.

Holders Paris Saint-Germain booked a Champions League final against Arsenal as a 1-1 draw in their semifinal second leg at Bayern Munich sealed a 6-5 aggregate victory.

Leading 5-4 after last week’s thrilling first leg in Paris, Luis Enrique’s side stretched their overall advantage early on through Ousmane Dembele on Wednesday.

Harry Kane struck in added time for Bayern, but it was too late for a comeback.

PSG will be favourites against Premier League leaders Arsenal on May 30 in Budapest after an excellent defensive display at the Allianz Arena, also the scene of their maiden Champions League final triumph over Inter Milan last year.

The French giants are hoping to become only the second back-to-back winners since 1990, after Real Madrid.

Bayern were angered by some first-half refereeing decisions but were largely toothless in attack.

The six-time European champions have still not reached the final since beating PSG in the 2020 showpiece in Lisbon.

PSG extended their aggregate lead to two goals in just the third minute, as Dembele fired the ball into the roof of the net from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s cutback.

Manuel Neuer made fine second-half saves from Kvaratskhelia and Desire Doue to keep Bayern in the tie.

Kane drilled in his 14th goal in the competition this season in the fourth minute of injury time, but it was too little, too late for the home team.

United States President Donald Trump says he has had “very good talks” with Iran over the past 24 hours and it is “very possible that we will make a deal”, as Tehran reviews a US peace proposal that sources said would formally end the war.

Signalling progress in the ongoing talks between the two sides, Trump on Wednesday also said Iran should suspend its nuclear programme and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to resume bombardment if negotiations fall apart.

“Look, this is very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon because as tough as they are, we want to keep them alive. We want to keep all of you alive,” he told reporters at the White House.

In an interview with US media outlet PBS, Trump also said he was optimistic about reaching an agreement with Iran before his scheduled trip to China next week.

“I think it’s got a very good chance of ending, and if it doesn’t end, we have to go back to bombing the hell out of them,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei played down reports suggesting an agreement with the US was close, calling them exaggerated.

He said Tehran had not yet issued a formal response to the latest US proposal, but is continuing to exchange diplomatic messages via mediator Pakistan.

Trump has repeatedly played up the prospect of an agreement that would end the US-Israel war on Iran that started on February 28, so far without success. The two sides remain at odds over a variety of difficult issues, such as Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its control of the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war handled one-fifth ‌of the world’s oil and gas supply.

A Pakistani source and another source briefed on the mediation told the Reuters news agency that an agreement was close on a one-page memorandum that would formally end the conflict. That would kick off discussions to unblock shipping through the strait, lift US sanctions on Iran, and set curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme, the sources told the agency.

It was unclear how the memorandum differs from a 14-point plan proposed by Iran last week.

Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, citing an unnamed source, said the US proposal contained some unacceptable provisions, without specifying which ones.

Lawmaker Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for the Iranian Parliament’s Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, described the text as “more of an American wish list than a reality”.

“The Americans will not gain anything in a war they are losing that ⁠they have not gained in face-to-face negotiations,” he wrote on social media.

US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told Al Jazeera that Trump remained “clear-eyed” about the temporary short-term disruptions caused by Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but that Washington can’t “normalise a country being able to determine who is allowed to use an international waterway”.

“I am certainly not going to preview or predict the actions of what the president may decide in the future, but the president has been clear from the very beginning that he prefers a diplomatic solution… But make no mistake that President Trump means what he says when he says the Iranian regime can never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would speak with Trump later on Wednesday about the ongoing negotiations with Iran, adding that they had both agreed that all enriched uranium must be removed from Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb.

Iran has steadfastly refused to give up its enriched uranium, which it insists is not for making a nuclear weapon.

Meanwhile, US military forces operating in the Gulf of Oman said they had disabled an Iranian-flagged oil tanker after it allegedly failed to comply with warnings, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced.

CENTCOM said in a statement that the vessel – identified as the M/T Hasna – was observed transiting international waters en route to an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman at approximately 14:00 GMT on Wednesday.

US forces issued “multiple warnings” to the tanker, informing its crew that the vessel was in violation of the blockade, the command said. The US blockade against ships attempting to enter or depart Iranian ports remains “in full effect”, it reiterated.

Trump late on Tuesday announced a pause in “Project Freedom”, a US military operation to guide stranded commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz – after only a day – citing a chance to seal a deal to end the war.

Trump wrote on social media that the surprise decision to halt the mission came after requests from “mediator Pakistan and other countries”, saying “Great Progress has been made toward a Complete and Final Agreement” with Tehran.