SpaceX proposes a $24 billion Texas supercomputer worth 17 times its bitcoin pile
SpaceX has proposed a $24 billion supercomputing facility in Texas that would include its own natural gas power plant. The project faces potential regulatory hurdles due to a change in state leadership and ongoing audits of energy-intensive data centers.
Why it matters
The project highlights the massive energy demands of modern AI infrastructure and the resulting friction with local power grids and political agendas.
The company is planning a $24 billion project at Starbase, a Texas city in Cameron County built around SpaceX’s main rocket factory and launch site. The project would include a natural gas power plant and a data center that the City Notice calls a “super-compute facility.”
For crypto readers, the scale is the point. The $24 billion project is roughly 17 times the value of SpaceX’s bitcoin holdings. As of this writing, the company held 18,712 bitcoin, worth about $1.39 billion, according to Bitcointreasuries.net.
The proposed plant would reportedly run on 35 turbines and produce 748 megawatts of power. That is a sharp contrast to most AI data centers, which plug into the local power grid.
“SpaceX proposes to construct, own, and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility,” the City Notice says.
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