SpaceX plans to build a $24 billion supercomputing facility and its own natural gas power plant at Starbase, Texas, according to a city notice that has surfaced in the past few days. The project would pair an artificial intelligence data centre with on-site generation, so the site would not have to rely on the Texas power grid.

The City of Starbase notice describes the plan in plain terms, saying SpaceX “proposes to construct, own, and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility” on a tract of about 444 acres east of Brownsville, near the Port of Brownsville. The estimated capital investment for the initial phases is about $24 billion.

What the notice says — and what it does not

The notice is a proposal, not an approval. SpaceX is asking the City of Starbase for a property tax abatement and the use of the Cameron County Enterprise Zone, and the city commission is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the request at 7pm on Wednesday 9 December 2026. Until the commission votes, nothing has been approved and no construction permit has been granted.

The notice itself does not name a data centre operator, list the chips that would be used, or give a construction timetable. It does not say whether the computing capacity would serve SpaceX’s own work, outside customers, or both, and it does not break down the $24 billion figure between the power plant and the computing side.

Power for the AI build-out

Separate filings reported alongside the notice give a sense of the scale. A state air-permit application for the site is reported to list 35 temporary gas turbines in the first phase, with combined output of about 748 megawatts. Those figures come from the permit application rather than the city notice, and they have not been confirmed by SpaceX.

The project fits a much larger AI infrastructure push. SpaceX merged with Elon Musk’s AI company xAI in February 2026, in a stock deal that valued the combined firm at about $1.25 trillion, and the company went public in June in what was described as the largest initial public offering in history. Reports put SpaceX’s target for total AI computing capacity at roughly 13 gigawatts by the end of 2027.

Building its own power also sidesteps a bottleneck in Texas. The state’s governor ordered a pause on 3 August that stops new data centres moving through the grid operator’s connection process until regulators complete an audit, so a plant that generates its own electricity would not have to wait in that queue.

What happens next

The next step is the public hearing on 9 December, when the Starbase city commission will consider the tax abatement and a related economic development agreement. Residents, regulators and environmental agencies are expected to scrutinise the power generation, water use and community effects before any building begins. For now, the $24 billion figure is an estimate for the first phases of a proposal — ambitious, but still awaiting a decision. CoinDesk reported the plan on 9 November, and Crypto Briefing confirmed the hearing date and the 444-acre site.