SpaceX plans $74 billion in supercomputer campuses in Texas and Arizona
SpaceX has set out two supercomputer projects, $24 billion at Starbase and about $50 billion in Arizona, with a $220 million Brownsville water commitment and on-site power at Starbase.
SpaceX says it is planning more than $74 billion of supercomputer investment in two places: a facility at Starbase in Texas and a campus in Cochise County, Arizona. The company’s update, titled “Building the Future”, adds a $220 million water commitment for Brownsville.
Two sites, two very different power and water plans
The Texas project is the smaller of the two. SpaceX plans to invest up to $24 billion in a supercompute facility (a data center built to train large artificial intelligence systems) on company-owned land near the Port of Brownsville and the city landfill. It says the work has already created more than 3,000 construction jobs and should support more than 500 permanent jobs once the site runs.
The company says the facility will make its own electricity instead of drawing from the public grid, so its demand does not compete with homes and businesses. SpaceX adds that the power systems will use emissions controls and monitoring designed to meet federal and state air-quality rules. It lists the intended uses as medical research, emergency response, advanced manufacturing and national security, and says the site will also help develop and test technology for computing in space.
The Arizona campus is about $50 billion, with roughly 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent ones. SpaceX says it is working with local electric cooperatives and that the plan could cut electricity bills for cooperative members by up to 20%. It describes dry cooling, meaning air rather than water carries away heat, with no planned industrial groundwater use or new wells, and protections for wildlife and dark skies. SpaceX says it is still seeking approval for this project.
How $220 million is meant to fix Brownsville’s water gap
About three-quarters of Brownsville’s primary water comes from two Rio Grande reservoirs, and SpaceX says both have faced critically low levels. The Southmost Regional Water Authority had already identified projects to add about 20 million gallons a day from other sources: 8 million through reuse of water the city already treats, and 12 million by treating more brackish groundwater (salty water from underground).
Grant money for those projects had been secured, but SpaceX says a gap of roughly $220 million remained. It argues that borrowing the money the usual way could have cost local water customers more than $370 million over 25 years, interest included. SpaceX has paid $40 million to the Brownsville Public Utilities Board so far.
The company states that the city and the utilities board keep full ownership of the facilities, and that it gets no water rights, prepaid rates or priority access. SpaceX and the City of Starbase will pay standard rates and face the same restrictions as other customers in a shortage. As part of the agreement, Brownsville disannexed about 444 acres to the City of Starbase. SpaceX says part of that land was an illegal dumping ground from the 1960s and that it is clearing scrap metal, tanks and thousands of tires.
What is still open: Taxes, permits and the pace of everything else
Much of the update is a request. SpaceX says projects of this scale need “a stable, competitive, and supportive policy environment” and is negotiating tax agreements with the City of Starbase and Cameron County. Its argument is that computing equipment loses value quickly, so a normal property tax bill would spike and then fall; a tax abatement paired with negotiated payments would give local governments steadier income. The update gives no payment amounts, and it does not say when either site would start operating.
The scale also sits beside SpaceX’s rocket work at the same site. We reported that Starship Flight 15 is set to try returning to Starbase to be caught by the tower, and an earlier piece covered the FAA environmental review of 456 launches from the site. Both add to the demands on Starbase’s land, roads and utilities, which any new data center will share.
The funding also touches investors. SpaceX says it has put more than $15 billion into Starship and related infrastructure at Starbase, and our page on SpaceX stock and IPO filings tracks how the company describes its spending to the market. The update itself does not say how the $74 billion would be financed.
The figures come from SpaceX alone. The cooperative bill savings, the water-use claims and the job counts are the company’s own estimates, and the Arizona campus still needs local approval, so those numbers may change as reviews proceed.
