This Early SpaceX Investor Just Predicted The Musk-Led Startup's Next Big Profit Driver— And The Math Is Hard To Ignore

Gavin Baker, managing partner and Chief Investment Officer at Atreides Management and an early SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) investor has said the rocket startup’s next growth phase may hinge on deploying AI compute infrastructure into orbit, a concept he calls “orbital compute.”

Baker, speaking to CNBC on Friday, said a severe global compute shortage is “growing more severe by the day,” making the case for space-based infrastructure increasingly urgent.

The Cost Math That Makes Space Compute Compelling

Baker estimated that SpaceX's Starship, once reusable, would bring launch costs to roughly $5 billion per gigawatt, putting orbital compute at around $30 billion per gigawatt versus $60 billion on Earth.

He argued that power, cooling, land, and infrastructure account for roughly $25 billion of a terrestrial gigawatt-scale build and are simply not needed in space. “It costs 30 billion to put a gigawatt of compute in space relative to 60 billion here on Earth,” he said. Repair and maintenance, he acknowledged, remain an open challenge for SpaceX to work through.

SpaceX’s Cloud Leap

In his appearance, Baker also noted that SpaceX had no cloud computing business a month ago and is now, by some measures, the fourth-largest cloud provider, ahead of Oracle (NYSE:ORCL). “We know that SpaceX was able to get a 55% IRR on their Colossus One data center,” Baker said. “When you have IRRs like that, I think markets are generally supportive of capital investments.”

He also flagged three milestones for investors to track: terrestrial gigawatt capacity expansion, Starlink V3 deployment via reusable Starship, and orbital compute activation.

On this front, SpaceX executives told investors ahead of the offering that initial orbital compute demonstrations could come as early as late 2027, ahead of the 2028 timeline disclosed in its IPO documents.

Atreides took part in SpaceX's initial public offering, which was priced at $135 per share on Thursday and raised $75 billion through the sale of 555.6 million Class A shares. The offering surpassed Saudi Aramco's 2019 record, making it the largest capital raise in IPO history. SpaceX closed its first trading day on Friday up 19.22%, finishing at $160.95 per share.

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