On the 24th, Elon Musk officially confirmed on the X platform that the orbital AI data center project planned by SpaceX is named "Starmind," marking its official expansion into the field of space AI computing infrastructure. Previously, netizens verified the "Starmind" trademark registered by xAI company to Musk, asking whether the name belonged to SpaceX's space AI computing project, and received a positive response from him.
This ambitious space infrastructure plan had earlier signs. SpaceX submitted a formal application to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on January 30, 2026, planning to deploy up to 1 million computing satellites in low Earth orbit. The project aims to build a vast distributed computing network in space through large-scale constellation networking, thereby providing AI computing power support directly in orbit for ground users and enterprises.
Moving AI data centers to space can effectively utilize the natural cooling advantages of the space environment, while also breaking through the capacity bottlenecks of ground power grids and land resources, opening up a new channel for AI computing power supply to meet the explosive growth of AI large model training and inference demands worldwide. As xAI iterates algorithms and SpaceX integrates its low-cost advantages in rocket launches and satellite manufacturing, the Starmind project is expected to reshape the global computing infrastructure competition landscape, driving AI computing power towards an "hard tech" era that is borderless and ubiquitous.
