SpaceX is accelerating the transformation of its AI computing business into a new growth engine.
On Thursday, September 10th Eastern Time, Bret Johnsen, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of SpaceX, revealed at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia+Technology Conference 2026 that SpaceX had signed another AI computing power hosting agreement earlier this month, which will bring in approximately $1.1 billion in monthly revenue from December 1st, or approximately $13.3 billion on an annualized basis.
Johnsen did not disclose the names of its clients, stating that SpaceX is confident in achieving its annualized revenue (ARR) target of $100 billion by the end of this year, calculated on a December revenue basis.
In Johnsen's view, SpaceX's core advantage is not a single business, but a vertical integration from rockets, satellites, communication networks to AI computing power and models: using Starship to reduce the cost of entering space, using ground AI computing power to create cash flow, and further sending computing power into orbit.
Massive computing power orders have landed one after another
This new order is not SpaceX's first major computing power order in recent times. In July of this year, the company signed a six-month, $6.7 billion computing power agreement that was not disclosed by the client, and some analysts believe it may be related to the US Department of Defense.
In addition, SpaceX has signed multi-year computing power agreements with companies such as Anthropic, Alphabet, and Reflection AI. Among them, Anthropic pays approximately $1.25 billion per month to SpaceX, and the agreement lasts until May 2029; Google will pay approximately $920 million per month starting from October this year and continuing until June 2029. The agreement previously disclosed by Google involves approximately 110000 NVIDIA GPUs.
However, Johnsen also reminds that most of SpaceX's computing contracts do not fully lock in revenue, and almost all allow for early termination by both parties after several months. The reason is that SpaceX's own AI products also require a large amount of computing power, and the company is unwilling to limit its business expansion by renting out computing power for a long time.
Next year's launch of orbital computing power, Starship accelerates commercialization
Johnsen stated that SpaceX plans to launch the first batch of orbital computing satellites next year and expand its scale around 2028.
He believes that with the continuous improvement of Starship's reusability, the decrease in launch costs may lead to a "crossover point" between orbital computing power and the economy of ground data centers around next year. Unlike ground data centers constantly facing cost pressures such as electricity, cooling, and land, SpaceX is betting that the cost curve of space computing may continue to decline as the costs of rockets, satellites, and solar systems decrease.
At the same time, Starship itself will also enter the commercialization stage.
Johnsen revealed that the 14th flight expected later this month will be the first revenue generating Starship mission, planned to carry the production version V3 Starlink satellite.
SpaceX's goal is to achieve the recovery of Starship's first and second stage boosters later this year; If everything goes smoothly, it is expected to further improve the two-tier reuse capability next year. SpaceX hopes to provide a common infrastructure for Starlink, AI computing power, and future orbit computing businesses through Starship's high-frequency, low-cost launches.
In terms of ground computing power, SpaceX expects to deploy over 2GW by the end of this year and further expand to 5GW to 10GW next year. Johnsen said that the company is "more confident" in its $100 billion ARR target, and AI computing power, Starlink, and future orbit computing will together form SpaceX's new growth curve.
Johnsen also revealed that the next generation of directly connected mobile phone satellites will be launched gradually in 2027, with the goal of launching services in the first half of 2028 and upgrading from current SMS and lightweight voice capabilities to "full 5G quality" services.
