(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk unveiled a more detailed look at an initial version of an AI data center satellite SpaceX plans to build, providing fresh insight into the ambitious project driving the company’s highly anticipated initial public offering.
Most Read from Bloomberg
During a 30-minute video shared on his social media website X, SpaceX’s chief executive officer laid out his plans for the future, including the continued development of its Starship rocket and the joint Terafab facility with Tesla that aims to manufacture computer chips in the US.
Musk also revealed a rendering with specifications of what SpaceX is calling its AI1 satellite, the first version of a spacecraft that the company plans to build as part of a roughly 1 million satellite network that will do complex computing for artificial intelligence in Earth orbit.
Musk noted that the early version of the satellite, sporting massive solar panels spanning 230 feet (70 meters), would support an average compute payload of 120 kilowatts and 150 kilowatts at its peak. SpaceX will start by using Nvidia Corp. chips in the AI satellites, Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen said in a separate interview.
Musk cited SpaceX’s experience with building the company’s Starlink system and said creating the data center satellites would be simpler than building those powering the satellite-internet service.
“An AI satellite is essentially a lot of solar cells, a radiator, and you still need some laser links, but you don’t have all of the super complex antennas that you have on a Starlink satellite,” Musk said in the video. “Given the two, the easier one to design for is the AI satellite.”
Musk said the data center satellites would need to be built bigger than the Starlink satellites.
Musk also showed off a massive, planned expansion of SpaceX’s facility in Bastrop, Texas, where the company currently produces user terminals for its Starlink system.
Dubbed Gigasat in a slide that Musk presented, the facility will span more than 11 million square feet and more than 1,000 acres of land. Gigasat will be comprised of multiple warehouses that will be used to manufacture the massive solar panels needed for the data center satellites.
While the Gigasat expansion is large, it still pales in comparison to the planned Terafab. Musk also said in the video the proposed Terafab facility would be 100 million square feet, roughly 10 times larger than Tesla’s gigafactory in Austin. A Wyoming-based LLC that is adjacent to Musk has been buying up land in Grimes County, Texas, for the expected Terafab.
