Picture this: It’s a Friday evening, and I’ve just survived one of those weeks where everything feels a bit too much. You know the kind — when the emails pile up and the laundry threatens to become sentient. I’m in the kitchen with my favorite playlist crooning in the background, a glass of wine in hand, and the distinct sense that I need something special, yet fuss-free, to round off this week. Enter: Apothic Granita and Vanilla Panna Cotta. This dessert is my secret weapon; it’s deceptively simple yet so elegant that it could grace any dinner party table. Think of it as a little gift to yourself — creamy, dreamy panna cotta topped with a refreshing, slightly boozy granita that feels like a grown-up snow cone. Trust me, it’s the perfect ending to an imperfect week.
Jump to Recipe
What You’ll Need
The beauty of this recipe is that it feels luxurious while using ingredients you might already have lurking in your pantry. Let’s check the list:
- 1 cup Apothic Red wine
- 1 tablespoon crème de cassis liqueur
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary
- 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
- 1 envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons) unflavored Knox powdered gelatin
- 1 cup half and half
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
- 1/4 cup cold water
How to Make Apothic Granita and Vanilla Panna Cotta
- Start with the granita: In a saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the Apothic Red wine, crème de cassis, 2 tablespoons of sugar, lemon juice, rosemary, and peppercorns. Let it simmer gently for 10 to 15 minutes until the kitchen is filled with a fragrant aroma and the sugar has dissolved completely.
- Once the mixture is infused, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool to room temperature. This is your golden moment of patience — let those flavors meld!
- After cooling, strain the mixture into a shallow airtight container, ensuring all the solids are removed. Cover and place it in the freezer for about 2 hours, or until it’s frozen but not rock solid.
- While the granita is freezing up its magic, let’s tackle the panna cotta. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a small bowl and let it bloom — this means it should look like a soft, jiggly sponge.
- In another saucepan, combine the half and half, heavy cream, and 1/4 cup of sugar. Add the split vanilla bean and its seeds, then bring the mixture to a gentle simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. You’re looking for the moment where it’s steaming but not yet boiling.
- Remove from heat and whisk in the bloomed gelatin until fully dissolved, ensuring a silky smooth texture. Strain the mixture into cups or molds of your choosing, then chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or until set.
- To finish the granita, use a fork to scrape the surface into icy crystals. It should remind you of a snow cone, but with a sophisticated twist.
- Serve the panna cotta topped with a generous scoop of granita, and get ready to impress yourself or any guest lucky enough to join.
Cook’s Notes
Keep an eye on the simmering wine mixture. If it reduces too much, you’ll end up with concentrated flavors that might overpower the delicate panna cotta. If you’re planning ahead, the panna cotta can be made a day in advance and kept chilled. As for leftovers, the granita can be stored in the freezer in an airtight container for up to a week. Just remember to give it a good scrape before serving again.
Make It Your Own
- Swap the Apothic Red: Try a different red wine for a unique flavor profile — maybe a Merlot or Zinfandel.
- Berry Burst: Add a handful of fresh berries to the granita mixture before freezing for a fruity twist.
- Vanilla Twist: Use vanilla extract instead of a vanilla bean if you’re in a pinch, but reduce it to one teaspoon.
- Herbal Infusion: Replace rosemary with fresh thyme for a fresh take on the herbal notes.
If you try this, I’d love to hear how it turns out — drop a comment or tag me! If your week has been anything like mine, this might just be the sweet escape you need.
Related update: Apothic Granita and Vanilla Panna Cotta
Related update: Flour-Less Peanut Butter Cookies
TL;DR
- SpaceX just turned “Colossus” into a real business line: Reflection will pay $150 million per month for GB300‑class compute starting July 1, 2026—up to $6.3 billion through December 2029—on a contract both sides can cancel with 90 days’ notice after the first quarter. [1], [4]
- This is not “more cloud.” It’s asset‑backed AI utilities: 72‑GPU GB300 NVL72 racks with 130 TB/s NVLink domains selling time like power plants sell megawatt‑hours; scarcity is the product. [2]
- The open‑source angle is strategic, not ideological: Reflection (seeking a ~$25B valuation) gets sovereign‑grade control without building hyperscale, while SpaceX monetizes idle Colossus cycles alongside existing Anthropic capacity commitments from Colossus 1. [1], [3], [9]
What the source said
CNBC reports that SpaceX signed a computing power agreement with Reflection AI, an open‑source lab, for access to Nvidia GB300 chips at SpaceX’s Colossus data center near Memphis, Tennessee. Reflection will pay $150 million monthly starting July 1, 2026, through 2029, implying ~$6.3 billion if the deal runs full term; either party can terminate with 90 days’ notice after the first three months. CNBC frames the deal as SpaceX productizing Colossus—built initially to train Grok—and notes prior compute arrangements with Anthropic, Google and Cursor, plus SpaceX’s post‑IPO push into AI infrastructure. Reflection positions the move as “American open intelligence,” courting government and national security buyers who want inspectable models and deployment control. [1]
Why it matters
The real stakeholders here are not just SpaceX and Reflection. They’re governments with procurement needs, enterprises chafing under closed‑model terms, chipmakers like Nvidia, and utilities in Tennessee and Mississippi that must deliver hundreds of megawatts on tight timelines. The Colossus platform already hosted more than 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and >300 MW at Colossus 1 for Anthropic—evidence of a compute market reallocating capital from model labs to whoever controls dense power and racks. [3]
SpaceX’s record IPO in June 2026 set the financial stage to package data centers as a revenue line alongside launch and Starlink. Deals like this convert capex into contracted cash flows and push “AI compute” toward a utility model: long‑dated offtake, power‑first engineering, and stickiness via NVLink/InfiniBand fabric topologies in GB300 NVL72 clusters. [6], [2]
Original analysis
SpaceX–Reflection compute deal: the economics and the bet
-
Back‑of‑envelope calculation for 2026–2029 cash flows
- Total value if it runs full term: $150 million × 42 months (Jul 2026–Dec 2029) ≈ $6.3 billion. That’s $900 million for 2H26 and $1.8 billion per full year thereafter. [1], [4]
- Capacity lens: If Colossus 1 was ~220,000 Nvidia GPUs across >300 MW for Anthropic, Reflection’s tranche likely targets Colossus 2’s newer GB300 inventory. GB300 NVL72 packs 72 Blackwell Ultra GPUs per rack with an in‑rack 130 TB/s NVLink domain; selling time slices of such tightly coupled racks commands premium pricing because many training runs don’t decompose across disjoint clusters without heavy efficiency penalties. [3], [2]
-
A 2×2 to decode the 2026–2029 market
- Axis A: Model strategy
- Open models (Reflection, select academia/defense pilots)
- Closed models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google)
- Axis B: Compute sourcing
- Asset‑light buyers (rent compute): Reflection today; many Series B–D labs
- Asset‑heavy builders (own DCs): Microsoft, Google; portions of OpenAI
- Where this deal sits: Open × Asset‑light. Advantages: speed to train, procurement optionality, and political palatability for U.S. government buyers who want source‑inspectable systems. Risks: termination rights (90‑day clause after the initial quarter) and renewal pricing exposure if GB300 supply tightens further. [1], [2], [4]
-
Named‑stakeholder breakdown (2026–2029)
- SpaceX: Proves Colossus is not a vanity project. It’s monetizable, modular, and now diversified across Anthropic (Colossus 1) and Reflection (Colossus 2). Post‑IPO, it becomes a credible third pillar beside Starlink and launch, with utility‑like revenue visibility. [3], [6]
- Reflection: Gains frontier‑class compute without a decade of data‑center capex and permitting. That turns its ~$25B valuation ambition from story into schedule: models out sooner, pilots with DOE and defense in a posture consistent with open procurement. [9], [1]
- Nvidia: Sells the picks and shovels, then benefits twice as labs rent time on GB300 NVL72 racks that entrench Nvidia’s full stack (NVLink, Quantum‑X, libraries). Every GB300 domain increases switching costs away from Nvidia. [2]
- Anthropic: Counter‑intuitively benefits from SpaceX scaling as a neutral lessor; its own deal locked up Colossus 1, and a bigger, healthier lessor reduces counterparty risk—until queues collide. [3]
- Utilities and regulators (TVA, MLGW; Mississippi Southaven build): Must keep adding firm power, water, and interconnects to maintain SLAs tied to Colossus near Memphis and the new Mississippi site. Delays would hit SpaceX’s compute P&L as contracted racks sit idle. [3], [5]
-
Contrarian read in 2026
- Consensus: “SpaceX is becoming a cloud provider.”
- My take: SpaceX is becoming an AI utility, not a cloud. Clouds multiplex VMs; Colossus monetizes whole‑rack, high‑bandwidth NVLink islands engineered for tightly coupled training and reasoning. The product isn’t elastic compute; it’s guaranteed access to a specific fabric topology with deterministic latency and power—closer to capacity offtake in energy markets than AWS‑style instances, and the contract form (fixed monthly, cancelable after a lock‑in) looks more like a power purchase agreement. [2], [1], [4]
What others are missing
Coverage fixates on the $6.3 billion headline but glosses over topology risk: GB300 NVL72’s value lies in the 72‑GPU NVLink domain and 130 TB/s in‑rack bandwidth. If SpaceX overbooks or slices domains poorly, customers eat efficiency losses that can turn an eight‑week run into twelve, erasing savings from list‑price discounts. Because GB300 clusters reward scale‑up over scale‑out, the real moat is scheduler sovereignty over complete NVL72 “islands” and the power‑and‑cooling envelopes that keep them pinned. This is why Reflection is paying for guaranteed monthly access to full domains, not just ad‑hoc GPU hours, and why adding megawatts in Tennessee and Mississippi without derating capacity is existential to the SKU. [2], [7], [3]
What to watch next
-
By Q4 2026, SpaceX discloses at least one more third‑party Colossus 2 customer with GB300 access on contracts ≥$100 million/year, signaling a standing product SKU rather than one‑offs. [2], [4]
-
By mid‑2027, Reflection ships a publicly usable open‑weight model trained primarily on SpaceX GB300 infrastructure, with documented reproducibility and optional on‑prem deployment terms for U.S. agencies. [1], [4], [9]
-
By 2027 year‑end, SpaceX files or announces at least 500 MW of additional power procurement tied to Colossus expansions in Tennessee/Mississippi, pairing long‑term interconnects with gas or renewables behind‑the‑meter to stabilize rack uptime SLAs. [5]
My take
SpaceX just priced compute like infrastructure, not software, and that’s the pivot the AI market needed in 2026. Renting GB300 NVL72 islands with hard SLAs will beat best‑effort cloud for anyone training state‑of‑the‑art models—or serving high‑stakes reasoning—where 72‑GPU NVLink domains matter. If Reflection turns this capacity into a credible, open‑weight alternative, the procurement map inside agencies and critical industries flips faster than expected by late 2027.
Sources
-
SpaceX signs computing power deal with open-source AI startup Reflection worth up to $6.3 billion — CNBC (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/22/spacex-ai-colossus-data-center-reflection.html) — Original report with contract value, $150M/month schedule from July 1, 2026, and 90‑day termination clause.
-
Designed for AI Reasoning Performance & Efficiency | NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 — NVIDIA (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/gb300-nvl72/) — Official GB300 NVL72 specs: 72 Blackwell Ultra GPUs per rack and 130 TB/s NVLink domain; explains why full‑rack topology matters.
-
Anthropic to use all of SpaceX‑xAI’s Colossus 1 data center compute — Data Center Dynamics (https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/anthropic-to-use-all-of-spacex-xais-colossus-1-data-center-compute/) — Establishes prior Colossus 1 commitments (~220,000 GPUs; >300 MW) and the Anthropic leasing context.
-
Open‑source AI gets more compute from SpaceX — Axios (https://www.axios.com/2026/06/22/open-source-ai-gets-more-compute-from-spacex) — Independent confirmation of the Reflection deal terms, timing, and cancellation mechanics; frames open‑source rationale.
-
Musk’s xAI to invest over $20 billion in Mississippi data center — Reuters via Investing.com (https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/musks-xai-to-invest-over-20-billion-in-mississippi-data-center-4438483) — Corroborates the broader Colossus footprint (Mississippi build) and regional power expansion linked to xAI/SpaceX data centers.
-
Musk’s SpaceX prices record IPO at $135 a share — Reuters via Moneycontrol (https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/musk-s-spacex-prices-record-75-billion-ipo-at-135-a-share-13947633.html) — Confirms SpaceX’s June 2026 record IPO, relevant to financing the Colossus expansion and compute commercialization narrative.
-
Microsoft Azure Unveils World’s First NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 Supercomputing Cluster for OpenAI — NVIDIA Blog (https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/microsoft-azure-worlds-first-gb300-nvl72-supercomputing-cluster-openai/) — Provides GB300 context in the wider market, including NVLink bandwidth and scale‑up behavior.
-
Open‑source AI startup Reflection locks in SpaceXAI compute — Axios (https://www.axios.com/2026/06/22/open-source-ai-gets-more-compute-from-spacex) — Used for cross‑validation of the $150M/month and 90‑day cancellation clause; notes industry positioning among open‑source labs.
-
Nvidia‑backed Reflection AI seeks $25B valuation — Investing.com (https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/nvidiabacked-reflection-ai-seeks-25-bln-valuation-wsj-reports-4581362) — Documents Reflection’s funding target and Nvidia backing, grounding the “open‑source at scale” capital story.
Related update: We recently published an article that expands on this topic: read the latest post.
Related update: We recently published an article that expands on this topic: read the latest post.
Related update: We recently published an article that expands on this topic: read the latest post.
Picture this: It’s a Tuesday evening. You’ve just kicked off your shoes after a whirlwind day, and all you want is something fresh, zesty, and sophisticated on your plate without spending more time in the kitchen than you did in traffic. That’s where my Citrus Arugula Salad with Seared Scallops swoops in to save the day. It’s got that crisp, peppery bite from the arugula that I absolutely crave, the juicy pop of a Cara Cara orange, and the tender, buttery goodness of perfectly seared scallops. It sounds fancy, but trust me, it’s a cinch to throw together—and it’s bound to impress whoever’s lucky enough to join you at the table.
Jump to Recipe
What You’ll Need
Chances are you already have most of this in your kitchen, aside from maybe the scallops. But it’s the simple ingredients that really let those scallops shine.
- Arugula
- Cara Cara orange
- Radish
- English or Persian cucumber
- Green onion
- Salt
- Scallops
How to Make Citrus Arugula Salad with Seared Scallops
- First, thinly slice the radishes and cucumber. You want them delicate enough to complement the scallops, not overshadow them. Dice up the green onion, too.
- In a bowl, squeeze the juice and pulp from half of the Cara Cara orange. Add a pinch of salt and whisk it all together until it’s beautifully blended.
- Add in your radish and cucumber slices, along with a healthy handful of arugula. Toss it all together until every leaf and slice glistens with that citrusy goodness.
- Now, for the scallops: Heat a splash of oil in a pan over high heat. The pan needs to be hot, hot, hot—like sizzling enough that you can almost hear it pleading for the scallops.
- Gently place the scallops flat-side down in the pan. Space is key here, so if you have a lot of scallops, do them in batches. Crowding the pan is the enemy of that golden sear we’re aiming for.
- Let them sear undisturbed. The temptation to peek and prod is real, but resist! After a couple of minutes, check for that caramel-colored crust. Once you see it, flip them over.
- Plate your salad and place about four scallops on top. They should be served immediately to avoid any rubbery disappointments.
Cook’s Notes
Seared scallops are one of those things where less is more. Don’t overdo the seasoning; let their natural sweetness shine. Also, scallops are quick to cook and quick to turn rubbery if left too long. Watch them like a hawk, and you’ll be fine. If you want to make this ahead, prepare the salad components in advance and just sear the scallops right before serving. As for leftovers, the salad keeps well for a day, but the scallops are best enjoyed fresh out of the pan.
Make It Your Own
- Swap the arugula for spinach if you prefer a milder green.
- Replace the Cara Cara orange with blood orange for a deeper color and flavor.
- Try grilling the scallops for a smoky twist.
- For a vegetarian version, swap the scallops for crispy tofu slices.
If you try this, I’d love to hear how it turns out—drop a comment or tag me! Whether it’s a quick weeknight dinner or a date night delight, I hope you find this as much of a joy to make as it is to eat. Enjoy!
Related update: Citrus Arugula Salad with Seared Scallops
Related update: Vegetarian Ratatouille
Related update: Pear Salad With Walnuts and Blue Cheese
Picture this: It’s one of those afternoons when the craving for something sweet is impossible to ignore. Not just any sweet, but a slice of cake smothered in creamy, luscious frosting. I was halfway through baking a batch of cupcakes when disaster struck—no frosting in sight! With minutes to spare, I whipped out this trusty Old Fashioned Vanilla Buttercream Frosting recipe, and voilà, my cupcakes were saved. It’s quick and easy, with ingredients you probably have on hand, and it never fails to impress with its smooth, rich texture. Plus, there’s something about homemade frosting that just feels like a hug in dessert form.
Jump to Recipe
What You’ll Need
I love this recipe because it uses simple ingredients that work magic together. Chances are you already have most of this sitting in your pantry or fridge:
- Solid vegetable shortening
- Butter
- Vanilla extract
- Confectioners sugar
- Milk
How to Make Old Fashioned Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
- In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and shortening together using an electric mixer. You’re aiming for a smooth, unified blend that’s a pale yellow in color.
- Add the vanilla extract, and continue mixing. The aroma will instantly start to fill your kitchen.
- Gradually sift in the confectioners sugar, adding it one cup at a time. Beat on medium speed, and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl often. This ensures everything is well incorporated.
- Once all the sugar is mixed in, the icing will seem a bit dry—don’t worry, this is normal!
- Add the milk to the mixture. Beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes. You’re looking for a light, fluffy texture that’s easy to spread.
- Keep the icing covered with a damp cloth until you’re ready to use it. This prevents it from drying out.
Cook’s Notes
A little tip I’ve picked up: Keeping the mixing bowl in the fridge when you’re not using it helps maintain the frosting’s consistency, especially if your kitchen tends to be on the warmer side. If you’re making this ahead of time, store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week. When you’re ready to use it, just give it a quick re-whip in your mixer to bring back its creamy texture. Also, be generous with that vanilla—for that classic flavor, it’s key!
Make It Your Own
Here are a few fun variations to try if you’re feeling adventurous:
- Swap out the vanilla for almond extract for a nutty twist.
- Add a few tablespoons of cocoa powder to create a chocolate buttercream.
- Substitute the milk with heavy cream for a richer, thicker frosting.
- Mix in some food coloring to match the theme of your dessert or party.
If you try this, I’d love to hear how it turns out—drop a comment or tag me! There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing your creations come to life. Enjoy every sweet, frosted bite!
Related update: Old Fashioned Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Related update: Apothic Granita and Vanilla Panna Cotta