Musk Confirms SpaceX Foundry to Ease Gas Turbine Bottleneck Powering AI Data Centers
aiinsider ·
Elon Musk confirmed that SpaceX is building a foundry in Bastrop, Texas, to manufacture turbine blades and vanes in-house, aiming to accelerate natural gas turbine production by up to 18 months. The confirmation followed a report from The Information, which cited job listings referencing a blades and vanes foundry and tracked SpaceX's acquisition of roughly 830 acres near its Starlink factory. Musk said SpaceX and Tesla are each building 100GW of annual solar production capacity, but natural gas remains necessary to bridge power needs in the near term. The move addresses a growing bottleneck in AI infrastructure, where data centers face power constraints beyond GPU shortages, with turbine maker GE Vernova reportedly sold out of capacity through 2030. Casting turbine blades that withstand extreme heat is a specialized process mastered by only a handful of companies worldwide, all operating at capacity. If successful, SpaceX would gain a manufacturing capability few competitors could quickly replicate. However, the effort has drawn scrutiny, including accusations from the NAACP regarding unpermitted turbine operations at SpaceX's Memphis data center site and research linking gas turbine emissions near data centers to health risks.
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