NVDA
SPCX
Space, but make it a data center
Elon Musk is basically pitching the final boss version of cloud computing: AI racks in orbit. In a post on X, he said SpaceX’s Starmind super-intelligence spacecraft could run on more than 250 kW of solar power — roughly 20% above the International Space Station.
That matters because all that juice is supposed to feed NVIDIA-powered compute. Investor Aaron Burnett floated the idea that the satellites could use NV72 racks and generate as much as $25 million to $50 million per satellite, and Musk said he was “cautiously optimistic” SpaceX could run a SpaceX version of the VR72 at close to 250 kW average power.
Why investors should care
This is still very much in the “sounds like sci-fi until it isn’t” bucket, but it’s the kind of sci-fi Wall Street loves to price ahead of time. If SpaceX can actually make orbital AI computing work, it could create a brand-new use case for NVIDIA hardware — one that stretches beyond data centers and into the space economy.
The flip side? There’s a giant asterisk the size of Texas. Power, cooling, launch economics, maintenance, and all the usual “can you really do this in space?” issues could turn this into a very expensive moonshot. AT&T and T-Mobile executives also used the moment to remind everyone that satellites still have to obey physics, which is a rude but necessary detail.
Big picture
For now, this is less “revenues tomorrow” and more “NVIDIA gets another futuristic growth narrative.” But when Musk starts talking about orbital AI compute with real power numbers, investors notice. Even if the satellites never become tiny space cloud servers, the idea alone keeps NVDA glued to the center of the AI hype machine.