Updated Nov 9, 2026, 6:22 a.m. EST. Published Nov 9, 2026, 1:54 a.m. EST.
2 min read
Summary
- SpaceX is planning a $24 billion supercomputing facility and natural gas power plant in Starbase, Texas.
- The company is seeking a property tax break for the project, with a public hearing scheduled for Dec. 9.
SpaceX, a bitcoin-holding enterprise that went public in June through the largest IPO in history, intends to construct and power its own supercomputer in Texas.
The business is organizing a $24 billion initiative at Starbase, a municipal area in Cameron County, Texas, established around the primary rocket manufacturing and launch facility of SpaceX. The undertaking would encompass a natural gas power station and a data center referred to by the City Notice as a “super-compute facility.”
For cryptocurrency enthusiasts, the magnitude is the main takeaway. This $24 billion venture is roughly seventeen times the worth of the bitcoin reserves held by SpaceX. Based on current figures, the corporation possessed 18,712 bitcoin, valued at approximately $1.39 billion, according to Bitcointreasuries.net.
The proposed facility would reportedly run utilizing 35 turbines to generate 748 megawatts of electricity. This represents a stark contrast to typical artificial intelligence data centers, which hook up directly to the regional electrical grid.
“SpaceX proposes to construct, own, and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility,” the City Notice states.
This places the company alongside Anthropic, which recently agreed to purchase 1.7 gigawatts of gas-powered generators for $3.4 billion. A gigawatt equals 1,000 megawatts. The document does not specify why SpaceX desires its own dedicated plant.
“The AI boom is becoming a gas story,” Global Commodity Trader Index, a benchmark for institutional commodity trading firms, stated on X. “Tech companies are no longer willing to wait for utilities to deliver power. They’re going directly to the source, securing generation capacity and scarce equipment. For gas producers, turbine manufacturers and pipeline operators, data centres are emerging as a major new source of long-term demand.”
The venture by SpaceX into artificial intelligence is a recent development.
During February, Elon Musk combined his AI firm, xAI, into SpaceX via a stock exchange that valued the unified corporation at roughly $1.25 trillion.
The City of Starbase is additionally being asked to grant SpaceX a tax reduction, and the municipal commission is scheduled to conduct a public hearing regarding the matter on December 9. The requested property tax exemption would decrease the property taxes for SpaceX and permit the organization to utilize the Cameron County Enterprise Zone for the development.
Nevertheless, the path ahead might not be straightforward for Musk. Democrat Gina Hinojosa triumphed in the gubernatorial race of Texas on November 3, unseating the Republican incumbent Greg Abbott. She ran her campaign in opposition to artificial intelligence data centers and criticized Abbott for permitting the energy-intensive installations to proliferate.
Abbott had previously ordered a halt on August 3, meaning no additional data centers can proceed through the connection procedure of the state grid operator until regulators conclude an audit.
The statewide assessment encompasses on-site power generation, including a regulatory evaluation of how these installations impact local water supplies and communities regardless of the physical location of their energy source.
It remains undetermined whether the private plant of SpaceX will enable it to bypass this regulatory obstacle.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/11/09/spacex-proposes-a-usd24-billion-texas-supercomputer-worth-17-times-its-bitcoin-pile.
