SpaceX Overhauls Data Center Build as UK Deepens Starshield Reliance

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SpaceX is overhauling how it builds its data centers, a shift that could slow the pace of new construction, while its defense business gains ground with the UK. According to The Information, a new management team from the company's rocket division is prioritizing reliability over speed, installing more backup power and cooling systems and testing data centers more thoroughly before they go live, a departure from the Colossus campus in Tennessee where the AI unit brought its first data center online in just 122 days. That speed came with trade-offs including frequent outages, such as a construction-related outage at the Memphis facility last week that knocked some Grok models offline and affected compute customers like Anthropic and Google, and more than a dozen data center leaders have left in recent weeks, replaced by SpaceX engineers. On the defense side, Reuters reported that the UK has spent nearly $40 million on SpaceX satellite services, including around $17.6 million in Starshield services, the military-grade version of Starlink with enhanced encryption, plus $22.3 million in standard Starlink, deploying about 1,000 Starshield and 500 Starlink terminals, making the UK the first country outside the US to publicly acknowledge its use of Starshield. The gains came even as SpaceX absorbed a new supply of shares, with about 319 million insider shares, around 7% of insider stock, becoming eligible for sale on Wednesday, the 90-day mark since SpaceX's June 12 IPO; the company went public at $135 per share in June, raising a record $85.7 billion at a $1.77 trillion valuation while floating less than 5% of its stock.

Impact on stocks 4

Artificial Intelligence · 3 stocks
Space Economy · 1 stocks

Theme Impact 7

Off-coverage companies 2

AnthropicPrivate± Mixed
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The InformationPrivate± Mixed
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