SpaceX Plans Over $74 Billion for Two AI Supercomputing Campuses in Texas and Arizona

SpaceX said on Thursday (November 12) it plans to invest more than $74 billion in two AI supercomputing campuses, at its Starbase rocket site in Texas and in Cochise County, Arizona, expanding well beyond rockets and Starlink satellite internet into artificial intelligence computing. Reuters reported that SpaceX's AI business generated more than half of the company's revenue in the third quarter. (Photo: a Starship vehicle at SpaceX's Starbase launch site in Texas, file photo.)

More than $24 billion in Texas, about $50 billion in Arizona

Under the company's statement, the Starbase campus will cost more than $24 billion and the Cochise County campus about $50 billion. The Arizona campus is planned to draw up to 6 gigawatts at full build-out, in four phases, with nine compute buildings of about 493,000 square feet each, plus electrical, operations and security buildings and outdoor yards for dry coolers, transformers and battery storage. SpaceX says the site would create about 5,500 construction jobs at peak and 1,000 permanent jobs, and could cut power bills for local electric cooperative members by up to 20 percent.

Starbase to generate its own power; campuses to train frontier models and support space-based computing

The Starbase facility would generate its own electricity rather than draw from the public grid. SpaceX said the two campuses will train frontier AI models for medical research, emergency response, advanced manufacturing and national security, and support development and testing of future space-based computing. The company has also committed $220 million to water and wastewater infrastructure in the Brownsville area. SpaceX went public in June, and quarterly revenue nearly doubled from $7.814 billion in the second quarter to $14.575 billion in the quarter ended September 30.

Money promised, permits not yet in hand; both sites face votes on December 9

Both projects still need local approval. The Arizona campus requires a special use permit from Cochise County, whose Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on December 9; a petition with about 2,400 signatures asks officials to deny the permit. In Texas, the Starbase City Commission is due to consider a property tax abatement for the project on the same day. SpaceX has not disclosed accelerator suppliers, network architecture or commissioning schedules for either campus.