Microsoft Could Be SpaceX's Next Big AI Customer: Bernstein Sees AI Revenue Surging Nearly 500%

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) could become the latest major customer for the fast-growing AI compute business at SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX). SpaceX held talks over the summer about leasing computing capacity to Microsoft, The Information reported. The status of the discussions remains unclear, and Microsoft declined to comment to The Information. Any deal would add to a business Bernstein forecasts will grow nearly fivefold next year. SpaceX Is Adding Big AI Customers Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned expects AI revenue to rise from $24.6 billion in 2026 to $115.1 billion in 2027, meaning SpaceX would need to add more than $90 billion in AI revenue in a single year. SpaceX already has several large customers helping build that revenue base. The company is selling AI compute to Anthropic and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL). Anthropic pays about $1.25 billion per month, while Google agreed to pay about $920 million per month. Another unidentified customer is expected to start paying about $1.11 billion per month in December. Those three disclosed agreements would generate about $3.28 billion per month once all are running, or more than $39 billion on an annualized basis. That still leaves a large gap to Bernstein’s forecast, although the firm also expects SpaceX to earn money from AI services, not only from leasing compute. Microsoft has been trying to secure more AI capacity as demand continues to outstrip supply. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said in July that demand was still exceeding available capacity, despite plans for about $175 billion in capital spending this year. SpaceX Is Building More Capacity SpaceX expects to end 2026 with a little over 2 gigawatts of compute capacity and plans to increase that to between 5 GW and 10 GW next year, CFO Bret Johnsen said last month. CEO Elon Musk told investors in August: “We’re building AI compute capacity at scale faster than anyone else, we believe.” SpaceX is also preparing to bring about 420,000 additional Nvidia GPUs online in November, according to The Information. Bernstein’s longer-term SpaceX thesis includes moving some of that computing power into orbit. Polymarket traders are skeptical that will happen soon. They give a 24% chance that a data center carrying at least 100 data-center-grade AI accelerators will reach orbit by the end of 2027. SpaceX shares were up about 4% Monday at around $165, adding to Friday’s 7.4% gain after the company three launches in less than 13 hours. Image: Shutterstock Read Also: US May Need AI Boom to Grow Out of Debt Crisis, American Hartford Gold President Says