SpaceX Bets the Farm on a Million-Satellite AI Supercomputer in Orbit

SpaceX has officially requested federal approval to launch a staggering one million solar-powered data center satellites, a move that could fundamentally decouple the future of AI from Earth’s overstrained power grids. According to a late Friday filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the company plans to deploy these orbiting compute nodes at altitudes between 500 km and 2,000 km. This isn’t just an expansion of Starlink; it is the opening salvo in a trillion-dollar race to build "Space Silicon Valley," utilizing the vacuum of space for cooling and the unfiltered sun for energy.

The business logic is as cold as the void itself: terrestrial data centers are hitting a wall. Between rising electricity costs and environmental pushback, the "hyperscalers" are running out of runway. SpaceX claims that by moving AI inference to orbit, it can bypass the grid entirely. The technical specs are equally audacious. Each satellite in the proposed "Orbital Data Center" system is designed to leverage Starship’s massive lift capacity, aiming for a constellation that could eventually provide 100 gigawatts of AI compute capacity. This would dwarf the current global terrestrial capacity and, more importantly, slash operating costs. Internal projections suggest that a 10-year operating cycle for a 40-megawatt cluster in space could cost just $8.2 million, compared to $167 million for a similar facility on Earth, a stunning 95% reduction in long-term overhead.

“It’s a no-brainer building solar-power data centers in space... the lowest-cost place to put AI will be space, and that will be true within two years, three at the latest,” Musk told attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this month.

The timing of the filing is no coincidence. It arrives as rumors of a merger between SpaceX and Musk’s AI venture, xAI, reach a fever pitch ahead of a planned $800 billion to $1 trillion IPO. By integrating launch capabilities with xAI’s "Grok" models, Musk is attempting to build the world’s first vertically integrated space-cloud. While the FCC has historically been cautious, granting SpaceX approval for only 7,500 Gen2 satellites earlier this month, this "maximalist" request for one million units signals that SpaceX is ready to dominate the orbital real estate before competitors like Blue Origin or Amazon can even clear the launchpad.

For investors, the stakes couldn't be higher. SpaceX isn't just selling internet anymore; it’s selling the engine of the next industrial revolution, powered by the sun and shielded by the stars.