SpaceX Puts $74 Billion Behind Texas and Arizona Campuses; Researchers Say Banned Blackwells Trained China's Top Models
Saturday, November 14, 2026 · 12 min
SpaceX outlined a $50 billion Cochise County campus and a $24 billion gas-powered Starbase build days after Texas voters turned on data centers, while new research says export-banned Nvidia Blackwells trained China's leading open models. ISO New England filed bring-your-own-capacity rules at FERC, and Latitude counts 120 GW of signed data center load against 22 GW operating.
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SpaceX outlined a $50 billion Cochise County campus and a $24 billion gas-powered Starbase build days after Texas voters turned on data centers, while new research says export-banned Nvidia Blackwells trained China's leading open models. ISO New England filed bring-your-own-capacity rules at FERC, and Latitude counts 120 GW of signed data center load against 22 GW operating.
In this episode
- SpaceX Unveils $74B Data Center Plans In Texas, Arizona — Bisnow
“The company announced the plans Thursday, outlining a $50B project at a new site in Cochise County, Arizona, and a $24B development on 444 acres near the firm’s headquarters in Starbase, Texas.”
- Export-banned Nvidia chips are behind China's most powerful AI models—uh oh, Jensen! | TechCrunch — Tim Fernholz
“The leading open-weight models developed by Chinese companies were trained on Nvidia chips that the U.S. government restricted from shipping to its largest geopolitical rival, a new research effort claims.”
- ISO New England's large-load filing ties firm service to new capacity | The Duck Curve — The Duck Curve
“Both non-firm services carry the same condition: the ISO re-dispatches all or part of the load's non-firm service whenever its local price exceeds $250/MWh, and the customer either cuts consumption or raises output from an associated generator.”
- Quantifying the state of AI power development post-midterms | Latitude Media — Latitude Media
“That’s the amount of signed data center load Latitude Intelligence is tracking (53 utility territories at launch, though the list is soon to expand), meaning projects for which there’s an executed agreement to take service. Compare that to 22 GW of currently operating data…”