Elon Musk has said SpaceX will launch a "space-optimised" Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale system into orbit in the fourth quarter of next year, with plans to scale up significantly by 2028. The announcement, made on X and echoed in a slightly differently worded Nvidia press release, marks an ambitious step towards putting datacentre hardware in space, though neither company has explained what "space-optimised" actually involves, and SpaceX has yet to build such a satellite.

A full NVL72 system contains 72 Rubin GPUs, 36 Vera CPUs, ConnectX-9 SuperNICs and BlueField-4 DPUs across 18 compute trays and nine NVLink switch trays, weighing around 1,800kg per rack and drawing 120kW, which Nvidia says will use novel liquid cooling. SpaceX has outlined a satellite design featuring a 210kW solar array and liquid radiators to dissipate heat in orbit, and its Falcon 9 rocket—capable of lifting 22,800kg to low Earth orbit and flying over 100 missions a year—could plausibly accommodate several such racks per launch. However, the piece notes Musk's patchy record on public predictions, citing a New York Times analysis finding he fulfilled only 19% of 602 public promises, with 35% delivered late or not at all.