Musk says SpaceX-Nvidia space computer to scale up in 2027

Elon Musk publicly praised Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Thursday, October 15. In the same post, he said the Starmind computer the two companies are building together for orbital data centers is "far better than almost anyone expects" and will reach volume production in 2027, Benzinga reported. Musk was replying to a clip of Huang on the BG2 Pod, where the Nvidia chief said engineers from both companies are designing a new server and computing architecture meant to run in space and on Earth.benzinga.com

"One particular new market that we're going to go explore together is putting data centers out in space," Huang said, according to Benzinga. The exchange shows how a chip supplier relationship has grown into a joint effort to design the infrastructure behind SpaceX's plan to compute in orbit.benzinga.com

Praise on both sides

"Old friends are the best friends. Jensen rocks," Musk wrote on X. He called the work with Nvidia's engineering team a "pure joy," Benzinga reported. Huang said he loves working with Musk and noted that Musk uses Nvidia technology to train and deploy AI models, including those from xAI. TeslaNorth also reported that Musk was reacting to Huang's description of a new kind of server for space data centers.teslanorth.com+1

Futu News described the collaboration as moving beyond hardware supply to jointly defining next-generation computing infrastructure. It said the design takes advantage of solar power and radiative cooling in space and sends data back to Earth through Starlink's laser links.news.futunn.com

The Starmind plan

The partnership became official in August. During SpaceX's first earnings call as a public company, Musk said the company would build its AI infrastructure only on Nvidia hardware. He called the Vera Rubin architecture "the best" available. SpaceX plans to send a space-optimized version of Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 system into orbit in the fourth quarter of 2027, "with significant scale in 2028," Musk wrote. According to Tech Times, each Starmind AI1 satellite is designed to carry 36 Vera CPUs and 72 Rubin GPUs, the same as a full NVL72 rack.ibtimes.com+1

SpaceX recently released a visualization of a proposed constellation of one million Starmind satellites flying in tight clusters. Benzinga noted that one million is a proposed maximum, not a firm deployment plan. The company is also spending heavily on the ground. Bloomberg reported that SpaceX plans to raise $40 billion in new debt to buy Nvidia chips for its data centers.finance.yahoo.com+2

Hurdles remain

The timeline depends partly on Starship. Reuters has reported that the rocket's development is behind Musk's original targets. Launch costs, satellite maintenance, power and heat management are still major obstacles for orbital data centers. Huang himself has been cautious about the economics. "The economics are poor today, but it's going to improve over time," he said earlier this year.businessinsider.com+1