Nov 9 (Reuters) – SpaceX is planning a roughly $24 billion gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility in Starbase, Texas, according to a public hearing notice.
The rockets-to-AI company’s request comes as opposition to data centers grows, with voters rejecting them in 40 of 41 local ballot measures and Democrats, some of whom had campaigned on pausing new projects, taking control of the US Congress and the Texas governor’s office in the midterm elections.
The filing shows SpaceX, which bought Elon Musk’s AI lab xAI earlier this year, has applied for a property tax abatement for the project. The Starbase City Commission will consider the abatement, plus a related economic development agreement, at a public meeting on December 9.
The notice describes $24 billion as the estimated capital investment for the project’s initial phases. It said the work may be done in multiple phases and could include future expansions.
SpaceX would construct, own and operate the facilities. The project would be among the largest private investments in the Rio Grande Valley.
Building its own power plant could let SpaceX skip a years-long wait to plug a project into Texas’ main power grid.
The notice did not say how large the abatement would be or how long it would last. It also gave no details on the plant’s generating capacity or the scale of the computing operation.
SpaceX affiliate Lone Star Mineral Development has filed plans for an 8-mile natural gas pipeline to Starbase, called Starpipe, that is scheduled for service by January 2027. It will feed a planned plant to turn the gas into liquid methane for Starship rockets, according to filings Reuters reviewed in June.
The company last month reported a 161% jump in revenue and a ninefold increase in AI revenue for its third quarter. The company has been renting out computing capacity to Google, Anthropic and others.
Bloomberg News first reported on the development.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
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