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Elon Musk said bringing large artificial intelligence data centers online requires far more than chips, as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Anthropic and other companies lease computing capacity from Space Exploration Technologies Corp. amid tightening power supplies across the fast-growing AI industry.

Musk Warns AI Power Crunch Is Here

“To bring large AI data centers online requires building massive power plants, transformers, liquid cooling loops & chillers, as well as incredibly complex networking (especially for training clusters),” Musk wrote on X Tuesday.

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To bring large AI data centers online requires building massive power plants, transformers, liquid cooling loops & chillers, as well as incredibly complex networking (especially for training clusters) https://t.co/pRBdDsOY1Q

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2026

The comments followed Musk’s video appearance at the G20 Innovation Ministerial Summit in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Reuters reported that Musk urged leaders outside China to develop new energy sources for data centers as he made the case for faster infrastructure expansion.

“Even before next year, there are challenges with power, which is why Google, Anthropic and many other companies are leasing compute from SpaceX,” Musk told delegates. “We’ve been able to bring AI compute online better than anyone else so far.”

Musk has argued that this vertical-integration approach allows SpaceX to move faster than grid-dependent rivals. “Constructing our own power plants is the only way we were able to do it,” he added.

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SpaceX Turns Power Bottleneck Into Business

That strategy has become a major business for SpaceX. Google signed a multiyear cloud agreement in June worth $920 million per month at full scale for access to roughly 110,000 Nvidia GPUs. The deal followed SpaceX’s expanded Anthropic pact, under which the AI developer agreed to pay $1.25 billion monthly through May 2029 for computing capacity.

SpaceXAI is also building a 1.2-gigawatt permanent power plant near its Greater Memphis supercomputer sites while retiring temporary mobile turbines as permanent capacity comes online. Musk has said this vertical-integration approach lets SpaceX move faster than grid-dependent rivals.

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AI Power Crunch Extends Beyond SpaceX

The electricity crunch extends beyond SpaceX. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates U.S. data centers could consume 11.8% of national electricity by 2030, with scenarios ranging from 9.5% to 15.3%.

Musk, during his video address, also criticized European Union technology rules, saying the approach “inhibits progress.”

Photo courtesy: Shutterstock

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