SpaceX CEO Elon Musk outlined more details for his company’s planned data centers in space ahead of a widely anticipated IPO on Friday (June 12) expected to make him a trillionaire.A new half-hour video offers a typical Elon Musk fireside chat about where the billionaire founder of SpaceX wants to be taking his technology next. In the video posted on X on Monday (June 8), Musk described launching AI satellites, with "a lot of solar cells", as well as radiators and high-speed optical (laser) links for communication. SpaceX also expects to launch an AI-satellite-focused production facility by the end of next year, to be "operating at some reasonable volume," Musk said. "So, if anybody wants to work on AI satellites, this is kind of going to become the hub of that."The common pitch among these companies is that space is necessary to generate AI capabilities because data centers on Earth are running out of physical space to host them, as well as lacking community support out of concerns about significant power and water usage by these big computing hubs. The challenge is that orbital data centers are mostly notional, and not actually demonstrated by operating tech — at least yet. But SpaceX is confident it can develop the necessary technologies to make an AI data center constellation a reality.
Elon Musk wants to put 1 million AI satellites in space. Here's how SpaceX could do it
"We've got a pretty good idea of how to operate, just really large constellations, and do it safely now, right? We are the only operator that has any experience of that scale."
SpaceX plans 1M AI satellites by 2027, 120-150 kW each, with solar cells and laser links for orbital compute. $1.75T IPO (June 2026) positions orbital data centers as solution to terrestrial saturation; SpaceX's constellation expertise is the unique advantage.











