SpaceX pioneered reusable rockets, operates roughly two-thirds of all satellites in orbit, and is building the huge Starship to dominate AI and take humans to Mars.

But its ability to build AI data centers quickly is driving the latest rally.

Shares once jumped more than 12% after blowout third-quarter earnings. On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s rocket and AI company reported third-quarter revenue of $14.6 billion, up 161% year over year. What’s more, it guided to first-quarter 2027 revenue of $33 billion to $37 billion. Wall Street was projecting $22 billion.

AI demand is off the charts. “I think in three to five years, there’s probably a demand for 1,000 times more [AI computing capacity] than there is currently,” Musk said. “Because AI or SI agents will, on a per-agent basis, use far more bandwidth than a person, and there will be far more agents than there are people.”

(SpaceX is now calling its AI business SI—for superintelligence.)

“We could rent out our compute several times over if we said yes to everyone,” he added. “What we’re seeing in the market is extraordinary. At current pricing, new compute deployments are generating a payback of less than a year.”

Of course, to capitalize on that demand, SpaceX needs computing capacity.

It ended the quarter with about 1.7 gigawatts of AI computing capacity. It plans to end the year with up to 3 gigawatts, and Musk plans to deploy another 10 to 20 gigawatts in 2027.

At the lower bound of 10 gigawatts, SpaceX’s total capacity could conservatively represent 25% of total dedicated AI computing power by the end of next year. The pace SpaceX is running at is something to behold.

“In our [post-earnings] callback with management, the company suggested that it would use new form factors to reach the upper-bound 20 gigawatts versus the lower-bound 10 gigawatts,” William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma wrote.

Exactly what that means isn’t clear. SpaceX didn’t respond to a Barron’s request for comment. But the company is vertically integrating into casting blades for power turbines.

Famously, SpaceX’s Colossus I data center in Memphis, Tennessee, was operational in 122 days. It took 276 days to reach planned capacity of about 0.4 gigawatts. SpaceX calls it one of the “fastest-deployed AI supercomputers.”

Impressive, but SpaceX’s 2027 goal implies a sharp acceleration in the pace of capacity additions.

Even if SpaceX doesn’t realize all its building ambitions, the pace is astonishing, and helps explain why sales growth is accelerating—and surprising Wall Street.

SpaceX stock closed up 7.8% at $159.31 on Wednesday, while the S&P 500 rose 0.6%.