SpaceX’s primary existing supercomputing footprint is the Colossus cluster along the Tennessee–Mississippi border.
- At Starbase in the Rio Grande Valley, SpaceX intends to invest more than $24 billion in a supercompute facility.
- The Arizona campus is planned at roughly $50 billion and is expected to create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent positions.
- SpaceX is now targeting 2.5GW to 3GW of compute capacity by the end of 2026 while also developing the Starmind orbital constellation.
Elon Musk’s rocket and artificial intelligence company SpaceX (SPCX) said on Thursday that it plans for more than $74 billion in new U.S. supercomputing campuses, pairing a facility at its Starbase site in Texas with a second project in Cochise County in Arizona, as it seeks to expand its AI compute capacity on the ground.
SPCX Plans New Campuses
At Starbase in the Rio Grande Valley, SpaceX intends to invest more than $24 billion in a supercompute facility that will generate its own electricity rather than drawing from the public grid.
The project has already supported more than 3,000 construction jobs and is expected to sustain over 500 permanent roles once operational, the company said. The announcement builds on more than $15 billion already invested in Starbase for the development of the company’s Starship launch vehicle.
The Arizona campus is planned at roughly $50 billion and is expected to create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent positions. The new sites are intended to train advanced models for applications in medicine, emergency response, manufacturing, and national security, while also supporting tests of space-based computing technologies.
Scaling Terrestrial Compute While Eyeing Orbital Data Centers
The new campuses form part of SpaceX’s wider push into large-scale AI compute following its acquisition of xAI earlier this year. The company has rapidly expanded ground-based capacity, reporting 1.7 GW of installed compute at September-end.
SpaceX’s primary existing supercomputing footprint is the Colossus cluster along the Tennessee–Mississippi border. SpaceX is currently leasing some capacity from the Colossus cluster to Anthropic (ANT) under a multi-year deal worth about $1.25 billion per month through May 2029. Other important customers include Alphabet’s (GOOGL, GOOG) Google.
The company is now targeting 2.5 gigawatts (GW) to 3GW of compute capacity by the end of 2026 while also developing the Starmind orbital constellation, which is expected to operate as orbital data centers and capitalize on solar energy in space. The company has filed with the FCC for permission to launch up to 1 million Starmind satellites, with the first units slated for launch in 2027.
Upcoming Starship Launch, Huang Hire Comments Raise Optimism
Separately, the company is now gearing up for flight 15 of its Starship launch vehicle on Friday, provided it receives necessary regulatory clearance. The mission will attempt to return and catch both the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage at the launch site for the first time.
CEO Elon Musk also voiced interest in hiring former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang into his own companies on Wednesday. Musk said in a post on X before Huang dropped his formal resignation that it would be “an honor” to have him on board. Investors have viewed the comment as a potential boost for SpaceX because Huang spent more than three decades building Nvidia into the dominant supplier of AI accelerators and scaling the infrastructure around them.
SPCX stock was trading nearly 3% higher at the time of writing.
How Did SPCX Retail Traders React?
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around SPCX stock stayed within the ‘bullish’ territory over the past 24 hours, while message volume stayed at ‘normal’ levels.
A Stocktwits user said that hiring Huang will allow SpaceX to unlock further value.
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Another user wondered if a successful Flight 15 of Starship on Friday will move the stock.
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SPCX stock is currently trading at about $143, above its IPO price of $135 but well below its all-time highs near $225.
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