SpaceX plans 10-gigawatt solar manufacturing facility near Austin

SpaceX is building a solar cell factory in Bastrop, Texas, with a planned annual production capacity of 10 gigawatts. The goal: manufacture enough solar cells to power artificial intelligence data centers floating in space.

To put 10 GW in context, that’s roughly ten times the output of a large nuclear power plant running at full tilt. The facility would be split across two production floors, each handling 5 GW of capacity, according to permit documents reported by Bloomberg.

What SpaceX is actually building

The Bastrop location isn’t new territory for SpaceX. The company already operates roughly 550,000 square feet of manufacturing space there dedicated to Starlink satellite production. Adding a massive solar cell factory next door creates an obvious supply chain advantage: build the solar cells in one building, integrate them into satellites in another.

In space, solar panels can capture sunlight almost continuously, without clouds, nighttime, or atmospheric interference eating into efficiency. For power-hungry AI workloads, that distinction matters enormously, as training and running large language models requires sustained, high-density power delivery.

Recent FCC filings have outlined the concept of solar-powered orbital data center constellations. These filings describe integrating solar arrays to power AI processors in space, turning satellites into floating compute nodes rather than just communication relays.

The bigger Musk energy play

This factory doesn’t exist in isolation. Elon Musk has publicly discussed a target of reaching 100 GW per year of solar manufacturing capacity across both SpaceX and Tesla in the coming years. Tesla already operates in the solar space through its Solar Roof and Megapack products. A 10 GW SpaceX facility would immediately vault the company into the upper tier of solar cell producers globally, even if the cells are primarily destined for space rather than rooftops.

The 10 GW figure comes from permit documents, not from a proven production line. That said, the permit filings represent a concrete, legally binding step. Companies don’t file detailed capacity specifications with local authorities for fun.

What this means for investors

Investors should watch for two things. First, whether SpaceX secures the financing and timeline to actually bring the Bastrop facility online at anything close to 10 GW. Second, whether the FCC filings for orbital data center constellations advance through the regulatory process. If both milestones hit, the competitive landscape for AI infrastructure, and the energy systems that power it, shifts in ways that ripple across public equities, private markets, and crypto tokens tied to compute and energy.

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