News
SpaceX’s ultimate ace in the hole is its Starlink satellite internet business
In a 2018 report on the current state of the satellite industry, the rationale behind SpaceX’s decision to expand its business into the construction and operation of a large satellite network – known as Starlink – was brought into sharp contrast, demonstrating just how tiny the market for orbital launches is compared with the markets those same launches create.
First and foremost, it must be acknowledged that SpaceX’s incredible strides in launch vehicles over the last decade or so have been explicitly focused on lowering the cost of access to orbit, the consequences of which basic economics suggests should be a subsequent growth in demand for orbital access. If a sought-after good is somehow sold for less, one would expect that more people would be able and willing to buy it. The launch market is similar, but also very different in the sense that simply reaching orbit has almost no inherent value on its own – what makes it valuable are the payloads, satellites, spacecraft, and humans that are delivered there.
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- An overview of space industry in 2017, produced by Bryce Space & Technology for the 2018 State of Satellite Industry Report.
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- SpaceX’s first two Starlink prototype satellites are pictured here before their inaugural Feb. 2018 launch, showing off a utilitarian design. (SpaceX)
As a consequence, if the cost of access to orbit plummets (as SpaceX hopes to do with reusability) but the cost of the cargo still being placed there does not, there would essentially be no reason at all for demand for launches to increase. For there to be more demand for cheaper launches, the cost of the satellites that predominately fuel the launch market also needs to decrease.
One of the first two prototype Starlink satellites separates from Falcon 9’s upper stage, March 2018. (SpaceX)
Enter Starlink, SpaceX’s internal effort to develop – nearly from scratch – its own highly reliable, cheap, and mass-producible satellite bus, as well as the vast majority of all the hardware and software required to build and operate a vast, orbiting broadband network. Add in comparable companies like OneWeb and an exploding landscape of companies focused on creating a new generation of miniaturized satellites, and the stage has truly begun to be set for a future where the cost of orbital payloads themselves wind up dropping just as dramatically as the cost of launching them.
Just by sheer numbers alone, stepping from launch vehicle and spacecraft production and operations into the satellite manufacturing, services, and connectivity industries is a no-brainer. Bluntly speaking, the market for rocket launches makes up barely more than one-sixtieth – less than 2% – of the entire commercial satellite industry, while services (telecommunications, Earth observation, science, etc.) and equipment (user terminals, GPS receivers, antennae, etc) account for more than 93%. Even the satellite manufacturing industry taken on its own is more than three times as large as the launch industry – $15.5b versus $4.6b in 2017.
In other words, even if SpaceX was to drop the cost of Falcon 9, Heavy, and BFR launches by a factor of 10 and the market for launches expanded exponentially as a result (say 50-100x), the market for launches would still be a tiny fraction of the stagnant, unchanged, unimproved satellite services and production industries. Put simply, there is scarcely any money to be made in rocket launches when compared with literally any other space-related industry.
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- An overview of just the commercial aspects of the satellite industry. (SIA)
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- Falcon Heavy’s inaugural launch, February 2018. (Tom Cross)
While far from a done deal, Starlink is thus without a doubt the most promising established method for SpaceX to dramatically increase its profitable income, income which could thus be invested directly in launch vehicles, space resource utilization, sustainable interplanetary colonies, and more, all while potentially revolutionizing global freedom of connectivity.
News
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang explains difference between Tesla FSD and Alpamayo
“Tesla’s FSD stack is completely world-class,” the Nvidia CEO said.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has offered high praise for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system during a Q&A at CES 2026, calling it “world-class” and “state-of-the-art” in design, training, and performance.
More importantly, he also shared some insights about the key differences between FSD and Nvidia’s recently announced Alpamayo system.
Jensen Huang’s praise for Tesla FSD
Nvidia made headlines at CES following its announcement of Alpamayo, which uses artificial intelligence to accelerate the development of autonomous driving solutions. Due to its focus on AI, many started speculating that Alpamayo would be a direct rival to FSD. This was somewhat addressed by Elon Musk, who predicted that “they will find that it’s easy to get to 99% and then super hard to solve the long tail of the distribution.”
During his Q&A, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was asked about the difference between FSD and Alpamayo. His response was extensive:
“Tesla’s FSD stack is completely world-class. They’ve been working on it for quite some time. It’s world-class not only in the number of miles it’s accumulated, but in the way it’s designed, the way they do training, data collection, curation, synthetic data generation, and all of their simulation technologies.
“Of course, the latest generation is end-to-end Full Self-Driving—meaning it’s one large model trained end to end. And so… Elon’s AD system is, in every way, 100% state-of-the-art. I’m really quite impressed by the technology. I have it, and I drive it in our house, and it works incredibly well,” the Nvidia CEO said.
Nvidia’s platform approach vs Tesla’s integration
Huang also stated that Nvidia’s Alpamayo system was built around a fundamentally different philosophy from Tesla’s. Rather than developing self-driving cars itself, Nvidia supplies the full autonomous technology stack for other companies to use.
“Nvidia doesn’t build self-driving cars. We build the full stack so others can,” Huang said, explaining that Nvidia provides separate systems for training, simulation, and in-vehicle computing, all supported by shared software.
He added that customers can adopt as much or as little of the platform as they need, noting that Nvidia works across the industry, including with Tesla on training systems and companies like Waymo, XPeng, and Nuro on vehicle computing.
“So our system is really quite pervasive because we’re a technology platform provider. That’s the primary difference. There’s no question in our mind that, of the billion cars on the road today, in another 10 years’ time, hundreds of millions of them will have great autonomous capability. This is likely one of the largest, fastest-growing technology industries over the next decade.”
He also emphasized Nvidia’s open approach, saying the company open-sources its models and helps partners train their own systems. “We’re not a self-driving car company. We’re enabling the autonomous industry,” Huang said.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk confirms xAI’s purchase of five 380 MW natural gas turbines
The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.
xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, has purchased five additional 380 MW natural gas turbines from South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility to power its growing supercomputer clusters.
The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.
xAI’s turbine deal details
News of xAI’s new turbines was shared on social media platform X, with user @SemiAnalysis_ stating that the turbines were produced by South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility. As noted in an Asian Business Daily report, Doosan Enerbility announced last October that it signed a contract to supply two 380 MW gas turbines for a major U.S. tech company. Doosan later noted in December that it secured an order for three more 380 MW gas turbines.
As per the X user, the gas turbines would power an additional 600,000+ GB200 NVL72 equivalent size cluster. This should make xAI’s facilities among the largest in the world. In a reply, Elon Musk confirmed that xAI did purchase the turbines. “True,” Musk wrote in a post on X.
xAI’s ambitions
Recent reports have indicated that xAI closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development. The funding, as per the AI startup, “will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products.”
The company also teased the rollout of its upcoming frontier AI model. “Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote in a post on its website.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s xAI closes upsized $20B Series E funding round
xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website.
xAI has closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development.
xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website.
A $20 billion Series E round
As noted by the artificial intelligence startup in its post, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others.
Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.
As xAI stated, “This financing will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products reaching billions of users, and fuel groundbreaking research advancing xAI’s core mission: Understanding the Universe.”
xAI’s core mission
Th Series E funding builds on xAI’s previous rounds, powering Grok advancements and massive compute expansions like the Memphis supercluster. The upsized demand reflects growing recognition of xAI’s potential in frontier AI.
xAI also highlighted several of its breakthroughs in 2025, from the buildout of Colossus I and II, which ended with over 1 million H100 GPU equivalents, and the rollout of the Grok 4 Series, Grok Voice, and Grok Imagine, among others. The company also confirmed that work is already underway to train the flagship large language model’s next iteration, Grok 5.
“Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang explains difference between Tesla FSD and Alpamayo
Elon Musk confirms xAI’s purchase of five 380 MW natural gas turbines
