Breaking

SpaceX Plans In-House Turbine Blade Foundry to Ease AI Power Crunch

September 1, 2026 at 10:31 EDT

Infra & Chips
Manufacturing

SpaceX is preparing to cast gas-turbine blades and vanes itself in Bastrop, Texas, targeting a supply bottleneck that has helped push large-turbine deliveries into 2030 and slowed power for AI data centers. Chief Executive Elon Musk has said in-house casting could bring natural-gas turbines online by as much as 18 months, calling blades and vanes the limiting factor in turbine production.

September 2026 · SpaceX

Casting around the turbine queue

SpaceX is staffing a Bastrop, Texas foundry for gas-turbine blades and vanes—the hot-section parts that now gate how fast AI sites can get off-grid power. Musk says in-house casting could bring turbines online up to 18 months sooner.

Specialist foundries at industrial scale (count)

Incumbent casters, tapped out

SpaceX foundry in plan

A tiny caster group, not the whole turbine, is the bottleneck SpaceX is trying to copy.

18 mo

Claimed faster turbine online date

2030

GE Vernova sold out through

10 GW

Terrestrial data-center goal by end-2027

$2.8B+

Already committed to turbine purchases

Path from bottleneck to power

1. Hire and build Bastrop foundry

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2. Cast single-crystal blades & vanes

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3. Qualify parts, assemble turbines

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4. Power AI halls sooner

Upside

Control of a scarce casting step could skip a multi-year airfoil queue and dual-use the plant for Raptor turbopumps.

Limits

Qualification, permits, fuel, and electrical gear still take time. Faster gas also means more local pollution fights already seen around Colossus.

Still required

Blades are necessary, not sufficient.

Hot-section metal at 3,000–3,600°F · 60–90 week blade batches today · solar at 100 GW/year each at SpaceX and Tesla, with gas as the bridge.

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