SpaceX picked Nvidia to build the compute guts for its Starmind AI1 satellites. The news hit Tuesday, hours before SpaceX went public with its first quarterly earnings. Both stocks popped on the announcement.
Starmind is SpaceX's bet on orbital data centers. Each satellite will pack Nvidia's Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs, the chipmaker's latest silicon generation. Nvidia calls this emerging market "space computing," and it just landed its biggest fish.
Back in March, Nvidia launched its space computing line with six early partners: Aetherflux, Axiom Space, Kepler Communications, Planet Labs, Sophia Space and Starcloud. SpaceX wasn't there. The gap closed on Tuesday.
The scale tells the story. In January, SpaceX asked the FCC for permission to launch up to one million orbital data center satellites across altitudes from 500 to 2,000 kilometers. The company calls the design a petabit laser mesh. Today roughly 15,000 satellites orbit Earth. SpaceX wants to multiply that number by 66.
The stock reaction
Nvidia (NVDA) climbed 3.03% to $212.91 on Tuesday afternoon. SpaceX (SPCX) jumped harder, gaining 8.67% to $124.46. The lift came at a key moment. SpaceX stock had been sitting 35% below its early July peak, even after joining the Nasdaq-100 index.
Nvidia says its Space-1 Vera Rubin Module delivers 25 times the AI compute of an H100 GPU. Volume shipments start this fall. The specs matter because SpaceX's AI unit burned through $6.4 billion last year while generating just $3.2 billion in revenue.
The real test comes Tuesday evening when SpaceX holds its earnings call. Analysts have mapped three scenarios, and Starlink's cash flow sits at the center of each one. Cathie Wood named SpaceX her favorite holding in July. NYU finance professor Aswath Damodaran has warned of a coming AI shakeout. Meanwhile, regulators still hold veto power. The FCC accepted the filing in February and hasn't ruled yet.
This article is informational and not investment advice. Cryptocurrency and space tech markets carry significant risk.
