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Jun 03, 2026
The Grimes County Commissioners Court voted 4-1 on June 3, 2026 to designate a reinvestment zone over the site of SpaceX's proposed Terafab semiconductor and advanced-computing facility near Gibbon...
Jun 02, 2026
GRIMES COUNTY, TEXAS - commissioners are set to hold a public hearing on 3 June 2026 regarding a SpaceX semiconductor complex at Gibbons Creek Reservoir, with two hearings, one on a tax abatement a...
May 26, 2026
Antwerp, Belgium - ASML (AMS: ASML/NASDAQ: ASML) CEO Christophe Fouquet told Reuters he has been in direct contact with Elon Musk about Terafab, the Texas-based fabrication project tied to Tesla, S...
The Economics of Orbital vs Terrestrial Compute
Mar 25, 2026
A bottom-up cost analysis comparing orbital and terrestrial AI datacenter economics. Using a parametric economic model, we test three chip architectures and three launch cost scenarios against Bernstein Research, Stargate, and Nvidia terrestrial compute cost benchmarks.We estimate a 1 GW orbital compute constellation costs $46B/GW at 2028 deployment, already below Stargate's $50B benchmark, and falls below Bernstein's optimistic $35B/GW floor by 2032 as Wright's Law compresses satellite manufacturing costs. SpaceX's vertical integration, Terafab's chip economics, and accelerating terrestrial cost inflation are converging to make orbital compute economically defensible sooner than the market appreciates.
$/GW Crossover: Orbital vs. Terrestrial