Beyond Rockets: SpaceX's Real Growth Story Is Its AI Infrastructure Business

Much as Elon Musk's vision for Tesla is for it to be more than a car company, his plans for Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) extend well beyond rocket launches. The company believes its biggest opportunity is in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector. While SpaceX believes its total addressable market to be $28.5 trillion, the bulk of that, $26.5 trillion, is based on its opportunities in AI.

That is key to the dynamic for understanding SpaceX as an investment, as well as the challenges and potential rewards awaiting it in its effort to capture as much of that addressable market as possible.

Image source: Getty Images.

Early wins for SpaceX's AI ambitions

Even before its initial public offering, SpaceX's ability to serve as an AI infrastructure provider was on full display. In May, it struck a deal with a major AI start-up planning its own IPO: Anthropic will be renting all the compute capacity online at SpaceX's Colossus 1 data center through May 2029 for $1.2 billion per month.

In June, SpaceX signed a similar deal with Alphabet, which will rent compute capacity for $920 million per month from October 2026 to June 2029. Both Alphabet and Anthropic are allowed to exit those agreements with a bit of notice, but if those deals both run their full course, they would generate over $70 billion in revenue for SpaceX.

Then, after its IPO, SpaceX announced another deal to rent out its computing capacity at its Colossus 2 data center, this time to Reflection AI, for $150 million per month from July 2026 through 2029. If that agreement lasts through 2029, it would deliver total revenue of $6.3 billion.

But turning its extra ground-based compute capacity into revenue may just be an early preview of the bigger opportunities SpaceX could capture.

Data centers in space

Terrestrial data centers are just the start of SpaceX's AI infrastructure plans. In January, the company filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission seeking permission to launch up to 1 million solar-powered satellites to serve as orbital data centers.

According to its S-1 filing, SpaceX plans to start launching such satellites as soon as 2028. In addition, it has reportedly been in talks with Alphabet about its Project Suncatcher program, which is likewise exploring the possibility of putting data centers in orbit. Alphabet intends to launch two prototype satellites in early 2027 with help from Planet Labs; its talks with SpaceX reportedly focused on its potential as a launch partner for future satellites beyond those.

The expensive road ahead

For SpaceX to build out AI infrastructure, especially in space, it won't be cheap. In 2025, out of its AI, space, and connectivity capital expenditures, AI easily had the highest costs:

• 2025 AI capital expenditures: $12.7 billion
• 2025 space capital expenditures: $3.8 billion
• 2025 connectivity capital expenditures: $4.1 billion

The AI division also generated the least amount of revenue, at $3.2 billion. That said, Goldman Sachs foresees that number increasing significantly to $322 billion by 2030.

There's plenty of long-term upside potential for SpaceX if it can successfully and profitably execute on deploying AI infrastructure in space. But for investors, the price of trying to capture some of that potential is dealing with risks, volatility, and the discomfort of stock price pullbacks along the way.

Jack Delaney has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Goldman Sachs Group, Planet Labs PBC, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.