SpaceX plans to invest more than $74 billion in two artificial intelligence supercomputing campuses in Texas and Arizona, the company said on 12 November 2026, in one of the largest private commitments to AI computing announced this year. Both projects still need local approval, with key decisions due on 9 December.

The company expects to spend more than $24 billion at its Starbase site in Texas and roughly $50 billion at a new campus in Cochise County, Arizona, according to a company statement reported by Reuters. The announcement underlines how far SpaceX has moved beyond rockets and its Starlink satellite internet business: Reuters reported that its AI segment generated more than half of the company’s revenue in the third quarter.

What is planned in Texas?

At Starbase, on the Texas Gulf Coast near Brownsville, SpaceX plans a supercomputing facility alongside a gas-fired power plant on about 444 acres, according to a city notice published this week. The site would generate its own electricity rather than drawing from the public grid, the company said.

The Texas project is the more advanced of the two. SpaceX said it has already generated more than 3,000 construction jobs there and would support more than 500 permanent jobs once operational. The facility is intended to train frontier AI systems for medical research, emergency response, advanced manufacturing and national security, and to support development and testing of future space-based computing.

The Starbase City Commission is due to consider a property tax abatement for the project on 9 December, a decision that will shape the economics of the Texas campus.

What is planned in Arizona?

The Arizona campus, in Cochise County near Willcox, would be the larger of the two, at roughly $50 billion. It would draw up to six gigawatts of power at full build-out, in four phases, across nine single-storey compute buildings of about 493,000 square feet each, according to reporting on the project.

SpaceX said the campus would create about 5,500 construction jobs at peak and 1,000 permanent jobs. It said it was working with local electric cooperatives and that the project could cut bills for cooperative members by up to 20 per cent. The campus would use dry cooling, with no planned industrial groundwater use, the company said, a significant point in a dry region where water is a sensitive issue.

Unlike Texas, the Arizona project still needs planning approval. Cochise County does not permit data centres by right, so the project requires a special use permit. A petition with about 2,400 signatures has asked officials to deny the permit, and the county’s Planning and Zoning Commission is due to hold a public hearing on 9 December, the same day as the Starbase tax vote.

A promise, not yet a finished build

The $74 billion figure is SpaceX’s own planned investment total, and the company has not published a detailed timetable for all phases. The Arizona campus would be built in stages, and its power arrangements still have to be settled with local cooperatives and regulators. In Texas, construction is already under way, but the tax abatement remains to be decided.

Even so, the scale of the plan shows the pace at which AI computing demand is reshaping the company. SpaceX went public in June, and its quarterly revenue nearly doubled between the second and third quarters of 2026, according to securities filings cited in reporting on the announcement, with AI computing accounting for more than half of that revenue. The two campuses, if approved and built as described, would give it computing capacity on a scale few private companies have attempted.

For the communities involved, the next milestone is clear: two votes on 9 December, one in Texas and one in Arizona, will determine whether the plans move forward as SpaceX has set them out.

Frequently asked questions

How much is SpaceX investing? SpaceX said it plans to invest more than $74 billion in total: more than $24 billion at Starbase in Texas and roughly $50 billion in Cochise County, Arizona.

Are the campuses approved? No. The Arizona campus needs a county special use permit, with a public hearing on 9 December, and the Starbase project faces a city vote on a property tax abatement the same day.

How many jobs would the campuses create? SpaceX said the Arizona campus would create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, while the Texas project has already generated more than 3,000 construction jobs and would support more than 500 permanent roles.

Sources: Reuters; Unite.ai.