SpaceX filed its intention to build a new AI data center at its facility in Starbase, Texas, which will be powered by a new natural gas plant that it will also build. None of that sounds like space, but this is the company that SpaceX has become. The initial phase of this build-out is projected to cost $24 billion, though more phases are to come. Critically, this gives the rocket company, which is also an internet company, which is also an AI company, which is also a social media company, a way to make use of its newest product: natural gas. Again, space!
The company has been moving towards an expansion into fossil fuels for the last few months. In June, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said the company was making plans for “basically mining our own natural gas… to develop our own propellant and bring it to the rocket.” The rocket in question being Starship, which SpaceX is essentially betting its future on. That takes a mixture of methane and liquid oxygen to fire up its thrusters; methane can be extracted from natural gas. For that reason, the company has made major moves to ensure its own supply. It hired for its own natural gas trader, normally an oil industry job for buying and selling the stuff, and is building its own pipelines in both Florida and Texas, per Bloomberg.
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In addition, SpaceX rapidly spun up AI data centers in Tennessee and Mississippi earlier this year, powered by, you guessed it, natural gas. It spun them up so rapidly that the company is now being sued for ignoring environmental laws. SpaceX is apparently trying to go fast again for this new Texas endeavor, likely trying to get things rolling before a newer, bluer state government takes over. SpaceX wants to grab both the air pollution permits it needs plus a few tax breaks; Texas is expected to make both harder to get early next year, per Politico. To that end, Starbase’s city government will convene on the matter in December. There’s good reason to think the company will get what it wants: two of the city’s three commission members are SpaceX executives. That’s handy.
As for the power plant itself, it will feature 35 mobile natural gas turbines and produce around 750 megawatts of electricity. So it’s now in the business of building power plants, buying and trading natural gas, and laying out pipelines, all in service of the enough data centers it’s putting up. No wonder Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev is now saying, “Fundamentally we are an infrastructure company at this point.” You don’t say, Dontchev.
