SpaceX Is Spending $2.8 Billion to Buy Gas Turbines for AI Data Centers

Elon Musk’s SpaceX committed to spending more than $2.8 billion in recent months on acquisitions gas turbines to a data center in its artificial intelligence division, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing Wednesday.

The big investment shows that Musk is continuing to double down gas turbinesalthough SpaceX’s use of them has led to public complaints, court cases, and regulatory questions about whether the company is polluting air and carbon emissions and avoiding environmental requirements.

Power outages are the biggest problem in data explosions among many things happening in the US. Gas turbines—generators that can move without drawing energy from the group-have been seen as quick and temporary solutions until more energy sources come online.

In addition to launching rockets and selling satellite internet, SpaceX also owns Musk’s xAI division, which makes Grok. To support chatbots and other AI efforts, xAI operates two data centers called Colossus 1 in Memphis, Tennessee and Colossus 2 in Southaven, Mississippi. SpaceX is leasing access to some servers at Colossus data centers $15 billion a year at Anthropican AI startup that creates the Claude chatbot. Musk said on Wednesday that SpaceX is planning to sign off on additional launches.

New information about SpaceX’s energy efficiency is part of the disclosures the company is seeking in its first public offering, a long document which are designed to help potential investors understand the company’s health and long-term risks. SpaceX plans to debut on the Nasdaq in the coming weeks.

In March, SpaceX agreed to buy $805 million worth of turbines from an unnamed company through 2029, according to an IPO filing. Then in late April, Musk’s company made a $2 billion deal for cellphones and related products from an unnamed vendor. That agreement is still pending.

Last week, WIRED reported that 19 new turbines have been added to Colossus 2 in the last two months, for a total of 46 units. Portable turbines can be used without an air permit for one year, a rule that SpaceX has used in favor. Some of the turbines were added after the NAACP and other conservation groups sued xAI, alleging that the company had been operating 27 gas turbines without proper permits, posing a threat to public health and the climate.

By March, SpaceX had enough servers between two data centers to use 1 gigawatt of power, which is close to the amount of electricity used by a large US city. But the company hopes to continue to grow, which will increase its strength. SpaceX has more than $14 billion in construction costs, including the cost of data center equipment that has not been used, according to Wednesday’s filing.