By Al Root
SpaceX had a busy holiday weekend, working on its Starlink space-based broadband business and revealing some of its AI plans.
The stock was up to start a new week of trading.
Shares of Elon Musk's AI and rocket company rose 0.9% to $163.37 in premarket trading, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.5% and down 0.1%, respectively.
The moves came after SpaceX posted a new video to its website detailing plans for a new "Starmind" satellite constellation. Starmind is the name for SpaceX's orbital data center constellation.
SpaceX, which merged with xAI in February, has AI computing capacity on Earth that it rents out to Google and Anthropic for billions a year. Terrestrial data centers face challenges from rising power prices, water usage, and local politics. To solve those issues, SpaceX is planning to deploy AI computing in space, using solar energy for power and radiating the heat generated by the chips into the vacuum of space.
Orbital AI deployments should start in 2028. SpaceX's new video shows models of what the AI satellite would look like. "The AI satellite is actually much simpler than the Starlink satellite," said Elon Musk.
There are roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites providing high-speed Wi-Fi to more than 10 million customers. The business Starlink generates billions in annual revenue and profit margins north of 60%.
The company recently disclosed that it had de-orbited 260 satellites over the past few months. This is the normal course of business for SpaceX: removing old satellites as it launches new ones.
The number shows off the lead SpaceX has in space-based broadband. It deorbited close to the number of satellites Amazon.com has in orbit. Amazon has put more than 300 satellites in orbit, hoping to create a competitor to Starlink. It plans to start broadband service this year, according to Bloomberg.
More Starlink and even Starmind competitors will arise. SpaceX's main competitive advantage is its launch capabilities. SpaceX handles more than half of the world's orbital launches, and its huge, fully reusable Starship, which is in testing, can lower the cost to reach orbit further.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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