SpaceX said on Thursday it plans to invest more than 74 billion dollars in two supercomputing campuses, its Starbase site in Texas and a campus in Cochise County, Arizona, according to a Reuters report of the company’s statement. The company expects to spend more than 24 billion dollars at Starbase and roughly 50 billion dollars in Arizona. Reuters noted that SpaceX’s AI segment generated more than half of its revenue in the third quarter, after the company went public in June.
The Arizona figure is new. This site reported on November 7 that the company, through an affiliate, had applied to Cochise County for a permit for a campus it said could require 6GW of power at full build out, with 3.6 billion dollars of power infrastructure spending in the application. Thursday’s statement puts total campus investment at roughly 50 billion dollars. The campus needs county approval, would create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, and would use dry cooling with no planned industrial groundwater use, the company said. SpaceX said it is working with local electric cooperatives and that the project could cut bills for cooperative members by up to 20 percent. A petition with 2,400 signatures has asked officials to deny the permit, and a county public hearing is set for December.
The Texas campus matches the proposal this site reported on November 10, when a City of Starbase notice put the estimated capital investment for a gas fired power plant and supercomputing facility at about 24 billion dollars. Reuters reported the facility, on about 444 acres, would generate its own electricity rather than draw from the public grid, that the Texas project has generated more than 3,000 construction jobs and would support more than 500 permanent jobs once operational, and that the Starbase City Commission is due to consider a property tax abatement for the project on December 9.
Both approvals fall in December, so the company’s 74 billion dollar figure is a plan stated before either campus has cleared its local decision.