Investor Cathie Wood, the founder of investment firm ARK Invest, thinks Elon Musk-led SpaceX could stand to benefit highly from orbital datacenters.
Orbital Datacenters Could ‘Dwarf’ Starlink
On Thursday, ARK posted a video on the social media platform X, in which Wood shared that the firm was “very positive” on SpaceX, but also noted that access to the company was easier as it gears up for its IPO. She then addressed questions about whether the company would remain in ARK’s Venture fund.
“We do not have to sell SpaceX, because it [Venture] is a public-private fund,” but hinted that the firm could reduce its position following the IPO, as ARK aims to keep the Venture fund’s position 80% private companies and 20% public.
“Our research suggests $160B revenue potential from Starlink alone. ARK thinks the orbital data center opportunity could dwarf it,” ARK said in the caption of the post.
Musk responded to the video in the post’s replies. “Interesting,” he said in his response. Notably, ARK’s investment thesis on SpaceX last month outlines that the company’s weight in the Venture fund was at 17.02% of net assets at the end of the first quarter of 2026.
Venture’s other positions include artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as Musk’s Brain-Chip Interface company Neuralink.
Starlink Funding
Recently, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr said that the previous President Joe Biden administration had denied SpaceX an $885 million award for Starlink, believing that the service would not be able to attain high-speed satellite internet.
However, SpaceX’s VP of Starlink Engineering, Michael Nicolls, recently outlined that the company’s in-flight Wi-Fi terminals were capable of achieving higher speeds than rivals. He shared that the latest satellite terminals on aircraft can support peak speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second. Nicolls also said that the 220 Mbps figure was the actual, real-time speed offered by Starlink on flights.
SpaceX-Anthropic Deal
SpaceX also signed a deal with Anthropic, allowing the artificial intelligence company full access to xAI‘s Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee. The deal would see over 300 megawatts of compute capacity added to Anthropic’s compute within a period of one month, the company said.
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