SpaceX Stock Rises as Nvidia Space Chip Paves Way for Musk’s Orbital AI Ambitions

SpaceX stock closed at its $135 IPO price on Monday. Shares have traded above $225 and below $105 since the company’s record-setting June IPO. (CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP via Getty Images)

Key Points

• SpaceX stock rose in early trading on Tuesday after closing at its $135 June IPO price on Monday.
• CEO Elon Musk said SpaceX helped design a space-optimized version of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin chips planned for orbit in 2027.
• SpaceX plans to build a constellation of artificial intelligence computing satellites powered by the sun to gain a cost advantage.

SpaceX stock rose in early trading on Tuesday after closing at its $135 June IPO price on Monday.

Trading has been interesting, but shares are where they started. The real fireworks start next year, with artificial intelligence going into orbit.

CEO Elon Musk retweeted a post from chip maker Nvidia about its Vera Rubin semiconductors, adding that SpaceX has helped design a “space-optimized” version that is planned for orbit in 2027 with “significant scale” in 2028.

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Vera Rubin is Nvidia’s latest AI Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), offering faster compute than its Blackwell chips and much better token throughput. Tokens are the unit of AI computing, essentially every word the AI model reads and outputs. Higher throughput means more efficiency, which means lower costs.

As for space, it’s a harsh environment with higher radiation levels and different cooling modalities. Specialized hardware is needed to keep computers computing above the clouds.

Nvidia is working on space chips because SpaceX plans to build a constellation of AI computing satellites. Musk believes that using the sun to power the chips will give SpaceX a cost advantage over terrestrial data centers that rely on traditional electricity sources.

For Musk’s plan to work—including AI satellites with Vera Rubin chips in orbit next year—SpaceX’s huge, fully reusable Starship rocket will need to be ready. It’s still in testing, with test number 14 likely launching in September.

SpaceX stock was up 1.3% in premarket trading at $136.71, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were both up about 0.4%. SpaceX stock has been above $225 and below $105 since the IPO.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@barrons.com

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