Just like Elon Musk’s vision, tesla His plan is to become more than a car company. space exploration technology (SPCX 0.12%) It extends far beyond a rocket launch. The company believes the biggest opportunity lies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). SpaceX believes its total addressable market is $28.5 trillion, with the majority of that, $26.5 trillion, coming from opportunities in the AI space.
This is the key to understanding SpaceX as an investment, and the challenges and potential rewards that lie ahead for SpaceX in its efforts to capture as much of its addressable market as possible.
Image source: Getty Images.
Early victories for SpaceX’s AI ambitions
Even before its initial public offering, SpaceX’s capabilities as an AI infrastructure provider were well established. In May, the company signed a deal with a major AI startup that is planning its own IPO. Anthropic will rent all the computing power in SpaceX’s Colossus 1 data center online for $1.2 billion per month until May 2029.
SpaceX signed a similar deal in June alphabetplans to rent computing power for $920 million per month from October 2026 to June 2029. Both Alphabet and Anthropic are allowed to terminate these contracts with little notice, but if both of these contracts run to their full potential, SpaceX will generate more than $70 billion in revenue.
And after the IPO, SpaceX announced another deal to lease the computing power of its Colossus 2 data center, this time to Reflection AI, for $150 million per month from July 2026 to 2029. If the deal runs through 2029, total revenue would be $6.3 billion.
But turning additional ground-based computing power into revenue may just be an early preview of a bigger opportunity for SpaceX.
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space data center
Terrestrial data centers are just the beginning of SpaceX’s AI infrastructure plans. In January, the company applied to the Federal Communications Commission for permission to launch up to 1 million solar-powered satellites to serve as orbital data centers.
According to the S-1 filing, SpaceX plans to begin launching such satellites as early as 2028. Additionally, SpaceX is reportedly in talks with Alphabet about its Project Suncatcher program and is also exploring the possibility of putting a data center in orbit. Alphabet plans to launch two prototype satellites in early 2027 with support from: planet labtalks with SpaceX reportedly focused on its potential as a launch partner for future satellites beyond them.
An expensive road ahead
The cost for SpaceX to build AI infrastructure, especially in space, is not cheap. In 2025, AI will be the most expensive capital investment in AI, space, and connectivity.
- AI capital spending in 2025: $12.7 billion
- Space capital expenditures in 2025: $3.8 billion
- Connectivity capital investment in 2025: $4.1 billion
The AI sector also had the lowest revenue, at $3.2 billion. Having said that, goldman sachs We predict that number will increase significantly to $322 billion by 2030.
If SpaceX is successful in deploying AI infrastructure into space and can do so profitably, there is good potential for long-term profits. But for investors, the price of trying to capture some of that potential is dealing with the risk, volatility, and discomfort of falling stock prices along the way.
