On June 10th, SpaceX announced that it will build a giant satellite factory of 11 million square feet (approximately 1.022 million square meters) in Bastrop, Texas, specifically to build the infrastructure needed to achieve the company's orbital data center goals. On June 8th local time, the company released an internal interview on social platform X, in which CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the factory is expected to begin producing a complete "artificial intelligence satellite" starting in 2027. The company plans to build a 1 gigawatt space orbit artificial intelligence computing power by the end of next year, and then increase the computing power scale by an order of magnitude every year thereafter.
During the interview, Musk unveiled the design and technical specifications of the first artificial intelligence satellite AI1, which is also the core carrier for SpaceX to build an orbital data center. The overall length of the satellite is about 70 meters, and the main body is composed of a large area of solar arrays. The photoelectric conversion power density can reach 250 watts per square meter. The satellite is equipped with a vertical double-sided radiator for cooling, and the payload module with a peak computing power of 150 kilowatts is placed in the center of the satellite.
This giant satellite factory, covering an area of 11 million square feet, is more than ten times the size of SpaceX's largest spacecraft manufacturing base, the Starship Factory. The entire park will achieve vertical integration of most of the AI1 satellite supply chain, and can independently produce solar silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar cells, printed circuit boards, silicon-based electronic components, user terminals, ground gateway equipment, and AI1 satellite machines. This 1000 acre factory area also includes a dedicated satellite research and development testing area, warehousing and logistics facilities, as well as a large-scale artificial intelligence satellite production line.
Musk said that the construction of the solar module plant in the factory area has started, and the artificial intelligence satellite production building is also about to start. SpaceX expects to achieve mass production of such orbital data center satellites by the end of 2027. The computing power of a single AI1 satellite is 150 kilowatts. The company plans to achieve an annual space artificial intelligence total power of 1 gigawatt by the end of 2027, which means that more than 6000 AI1 satellites will need to be launched each year. As a reference, as of June 2026, there are approximately 10500 Starlink satellites operating normally in orbit.
Musk has set a goal of achieving an annual computing power of 100 gigawatts by 2030, with a long-term goal of reaching terawatt level space computing power and relying entirely on space solar energy for power supply. He said, "We plan to achieve an annualized computing power of 1 gigawatt for space artificial intelligence by the end of next year, and strive to increase the computing power by an order of magnitude every year. According to this plan, the annualized computing power of space will reach 10 gigawatts in two and a half years, and is expected to exceed 100 gigawatts in three and a half years." He also added that in the future, depending on the progress of chip manufacturing technology, we hope to further impact the annual computing power scale of 1 terawatt.
The largest artificial intelligence data center currently announced globally is Meta's Hyperion data center located in Louisiana. The total investment of this project exceeds 100 billion US dollars, and after full completion, its computing power can reach 5 gigawatts, equipped with about 2 million graphics processors. Its first 2 gigawatts of computing power will not be implemented until 2030. AI company xAI's Colossus 2 data center in Memphis has just completed expansion, with a total capacity of nearly 2 gigawatts, equipped with 555000 graphics processors, and costing approximately $18 billion. It is currently the largest single AI computing center in the world. By comparison, 100 gigawatts of computing power per year is equivalent to building 20 Hyperion data centers or 50 Colossus 2 data centers annually.
To achieve this grand goal, a massive amount of high-end chip support is needed. In response, Musk launched the Terafab project - a chip factory jointly built by SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI in Austin. This factory covers an area of 100 million square feet (approximately 9.29 million square meters), with a planned annual production capacity to support 1 terawatt of computing power, equivalent to 100 million to 200 million advanced process chips. However, the project has been widely questioned by the industry: none of the three companies had previous experience in chip manufacturing, yet they directly challenged the current state-of-the-art 2-nanometer chip technology.
Setting aside the grand vision of gigawatt level computing power, this giant satellite factory is still an important step in building an orbital data center. The energy consumption of ground data centers remains high, while orbital data centers are considered a feasible solution in the industry, and SpaceX is also leading the way in this field. The large-scale manufacturing of solar panels, circuit components, and satellite cabins is a mature process, mostly relying on the relevant technologies of the existing third-generation satellite chains. However, the scale is much larger, which is also the main reason why it is considered feasible to put them into operation smoothly in 2027.
