{"id":657578,"date":"2026-08-26T14:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T14:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/657578\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T14:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T14:40:14","slug":"think-ai-is-expensive-spacex-is-spending-100-billion-to-build-a-new-starbase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/657578\/","title":{"rendered":"Think AI Is Expensive? SpaceX Is Spending $100 Billion to Build a New Starbase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>          Quick Read      <\/p>\n<ul class=\"yf-1jsc1up\">\n<li class=\"yf-1jsc1up\">\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">SpaceX&#8217;s $100 billion Starbase Louisiana investment equals 23 times its annual space revenue, building infrastructure for thousands of future launches.  <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"yf-1jsc1up\">\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Starlink&#8217;s $11.4 billion in 2025 revenue and $4.4 billion operating income gives SpaceX a profitable engine to fund its next-generation ambitions.  <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"yf-1jsc1up\">\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft are collectively spending capital equivalent to 102% of their 2026 cloud revenue, racing to own future AI capacity.  <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"yf-1jsc1up\">\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks \u2014 and SpaceX didn&#8217;t make the cut. <a href=\"https:\/\/247wallst.com\/lp\/top-10-ai-stocks\/SPCX\/?i=d77d56a6-49f7-4440-b7d2-9f347172b3f5&amp;p=aded526a-f78d-426a-9c96-82c54af7e0ab&amp;pos=keypoints&amp;tpid=1649150&amp;l=b17ce983-5361-4dba-a2fd-2469b8705237&amp;c=3af9b05b-bac6-4a46-815a-254223a80206&amp;utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=feed&amp;utm_content=feed||1649150\" data-ylk=\"slk:Grab%20the%20names%20FREE%20today;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;source:content-canvas%20default\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Grab the names FREE today&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yTrafficOrigin&quot;:&quot;content-canvas default&quot;}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Grab the names FREE today<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">The AI infrastructure boom is rewriting the definition of capital-intensive growth. <strong>UBS<\/strong> estimates hyperscalers will spend $4.1 trillion on AI infrastructure from 2026 through 2028, more than triple the $1.3 trillion deployed during the previous six years. That spending reaches $1.009 trillion this year, $1.447 trillion in 2027, and $1.619 trillion in 2028.\u00a0  <\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/69522c0afc9dcd0664cc220f382a518f49fe2142cb36025d856fd9111c5f788b\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefit_w960%3Bquality_80%3Bformat_webp\/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2F24_7_wall_st__718%2F0f7cde0bc079c43f962ef45637cfbda3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==\" alt=\"Starship launch\" height=\"618\" width=\"960\" class=\"yf-1f8hkhu loader\"\/><\/a> SpaceX           <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">The remarkable part isn&#8217;t just the size of the numbers. It&#8217;s how quickly companies are committing capital before the revenue arrives. <strong>SpaceX<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/SPCX\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:NASDAQ%3ASPCX;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;source:content-canvas%20default\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;NASDAQ:SPCX&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yTrafficOrigin&quot;:&quot;content-canvas default&quot;}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NASDAQ:SPCX<\/a>) is now taking that same logic into space.  <\/p>\n<p>        SpaceX Takes the Spending Race to Louisiana          <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">SpaceX announced yesterday that it plans to invest at least $100 billion in Starbase Louisiana, a 125,000-acre launch complex in Vermilion Parish. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2027, with the first launch targeted for 2029. The Louisiana Economic Development agency says the facility is designed to support thousands of launches annually.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">That is a staggering number for a company whose trailing-12-month capital expenditures already total about $42.4 billion. SpaceX generated roughly $23 billion of revenue over that period, meaning the new Starbase investment alone would equal more than four times annual revenue.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">The comparison gets even more striking when you isolate the company&#8217;s traditional space business. About 19% of SpaceX&#8217;s revenue comes from space operations, or roughly $4.35 billion. At $100 billion, Starbase Louisiana represents about <strong>23 times<\/strong> that annual revenue.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">24\/7 Wall St.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\"><strong>Act now:<\/strong> the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks \u2014 and SpaceX didn&#8217;t make the cut. <a href=\"https:\/\/247wallst.com\/lp\/top-10-ai-stocks\/SPCX\/?i=d77d56a6-49f7-4440-b7d2-9f347172b3f5&amp;p=92103f51-044f-4669-8ba5-a79fcf7642bd&amp;pos=mid_content&amp;tpid=1649150&amp;l=b17ce983-5361-4dba-a2fd-2469b8705237&amp;c=3af9b05b-bac6-4a46-815a-254223a80206&amp;utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=feed&amp;utm_content=feed||1649150\" data-ylk=\"slk:Grab%20the%20names%20FREE%20today;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;source:content-canvas%20default\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Grab the names FREE today&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yTrafficOrigin&quot;:&quot;content-canvas default&quot;}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Grab the names FREE today<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\"> Investing 23x your annual revenue before the market even exists\u2014this is the high-stakes blueprint for the next industrial revolution. \u00a9 24\/7 Wall St.  <\/p>\n<p>        AI Spending Shows Why This Matters           <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">In the context of the broader infrastructure race, UBS estimates <strong>Amazon<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/AMZN\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:NASDAQ%3AAMZN;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;source:content-canvas%20default\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;NASDAQ:AMZN&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yTrafficOrigin&quot;:&quot;content-canvas default&quot;}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NASDAQ:AMZN<\/a>), <strong>Alphabet<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/GOOG\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:NASDAQ%3AGOOG;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;source:content-canvas%20default\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;NASDAQ:GOOG&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yTrafficOrigin&quot;:&quot;content-canvas default&quot;}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NASDAQ:GOOG<\/a>), and <strong>Microsoft<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/MSFT\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:NASDAQ%3AMSFT;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;source:content-canvas%20default\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;NASDAQ:MSFT&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yTrafficOrigin&quot;:&quot;content-canvas default&quot;}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NASDAQ:MSFT<\/a>) will collectively spend capital equivalent to 102% of their cloud revenue in 2026. UBS expects that ratio to ease to 99% in 2027 and 94% in 2028 &#8212; but dollar spending keeps rising.  <\/p>\n<p>    Story Continues  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">That tells investors that companies aren&#8217;t waiting for today&#8217;s revenue to justify tomorrow&#8217;s infrastructure. They&#8217;re spending ahead of demand because whoever owns the capacity may capture the next wave of growth.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">SpaceX is doing the same thing, only with rockets, satellites, and launch pads instead of GPUs and data centers.  <\/p>\n<p>       Starlink Is Funding the Moonshot         <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Granted, SpaceX doesn&#8217;t have the diversified cash engine of a hyperscaler. That&#8217;s where Starlink becomes critical.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">SpaceX&#8217;s Connectivity segment &#8212; primarily Starlink &#8212; generated $11.4 billion of revenue and $4.4 billion of operating income in 2025. In the second quarter of 2026 alone, Starlink produced $4.29 billion of revenue and $1.66 billion of operating income.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Meanwhile, SpaceX is building another revenue engine. Contracts with <strong>Anthropic<\/strong>, Google, and <strong>Reflection AI<\/strong> are expected to generate more than $28 billion annually from its Colossus computing infrastructure, although those agreements contain termination provisions.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">That combination &#8212; profitable Starlink funding today&#8217;s ambitions while AI contracts build tomorrow&#8217;s cash flow &#8212; gives SpaceX a plausible path to financing Starbase.  <\/p>\n<p>       Key Takeaway         <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">In short, SpaceX&#8217;s $100 billion Louisiana project looks extravagant until viewed alongside the $4.1 trillion AI infrastructure boom. The risk is obvious: SpaceX is committing capital at a pace that vastly exceeds its current space revenue.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">But that&#8217;s also the investment thesis. SpaceX isn&#8217;t building Starbase Louisiana for today&#8217;s business. It&#8217;s building infrastructure for a much larger future involving Starlink, Starship, AI satellites, and potentially thousands of annual launches. For investors, the key question isn&#8217;t whether $100 billion is expensive. It is whether SpaceX can turn that enormous infrastructure bet into enough recurring revenue to justify it.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\"><strong>Act now:<\/strong> the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks \u2014 and SpaceX didn&#8217;t make the cut. <a href=\"https:\/\/247wallst.com\/lp\/top-10-ai-stocks\/SPCX\/?i=d77d56a6-49f7-4440-b7d2-9f347172b3f5&amp;p=ea93966a-680e-4e83-abfa-2ea9e7c81711&amp;pos=end_of_article&amp;tpid=1649150&amp;c=3af9b05b-bac6-4a46-815a-254223a80206&amp;l=b17ce983-5361-4dba-a2fd-2469b8705237&amp;utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=feed&amp;utm_content=feed||1649150\" data-ylk=\"slk:Grab%20the%20names%20FREE%20today;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;source:content-canvas%20default\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Grab the names FREE today&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yTrafficOrigin&quot;:&quot;content-canvas default&quot;}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Grab the names FREE today<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Contact <a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/technology\/ai\/articles\/mailto:editorial@247wallst.com?subject=Feedback%3A%20Think%20AI%20Is%20Expensive%3F%20SpaceX%20Is%20Spending%20%24100%20Billion%20to%20Build%20a%20New%20Starbase&amp;body=Please%20share%20your%20feedback%20here%3A%0D%0A%0D%0A---%0D%0A%0D%0ARegarding%20this%20article%3A%20https%3A%2F%2F247wallst.com%2Finvesting%2F2026%2F08%2F26%2Fthink-ai-is-expensive-spacex-is-spending-100-billion-to-build-a-new-starbase%2F\" data-ylk=\"slk:editorial%40247wallst.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;source:content-canvas%20default\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;editorial@247wallst.com&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yTrafficOrigin&quot;:&quot;content-canvas default&quot;}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">editorial@247wallst.com<\/a> for any questions or corrections.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quick Read SpaceX&#8217;s $100 billion Starbase Louisiana investment equals 23 times its annual space revenue, building infrastructure for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,9502,289,290,18,19,6394,17,277953,131495,2731,4425,82,173533],"class_list":["post-657578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-annual-revenue","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-infrastructure","tag-ireland","tag-louisiana-economic-development","tag-operating-income","tag-spacex","tag-starlink","tag-technology","tag-top-10-ai-stocks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117162333082889793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}