SpaceX is building its own gas turbine blade factory to power AI faster

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Elon Musk says making blades and vanes in-house could bring natural gas turbines online up to 18 months faster

Ethan Swope / Bloomberg via Getty Images

SpaceX confirmed plans to build a foundry that will cast the blades and vanes used in natural gas power turbines, a move Elon Musk says could speed up turbine deployment for AI data centers by as much as 18 months.

Musk confirmed the plans on X $TWTR over the weekend, calling the initiative "a profound game-changer" and saying it could bring turbines online as much as 18 months sooner, according to the Wall Street Journal. The announcement came in response to a report from the Information. A Morgan Stanley $MS report from mid-August had identified Bastrop, Texas, as the site of a planned SpaceX foundry, drawing on the company's job postings.

According to the outlet's account of the Morgan Stanley report, the foundry would supply single-crystal nickel superalloy parts to both the turbopumps powering SpaceX's Raptor engines and to natural gas power turbines.

Howmet Aerospace $HWM stock fell more than 7% on Monday before partially recovering on Tuesday. Shares of Howmet Aerospace and smaller rival DPC also declined. Howmet and Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.B's Precision Castparts are the two dominant producers of turbine blades and vanes, with Howmet holding roughly half of the global market share for components used in natural gas turbines.

Industry analysts say SpaceX faces steep barriers. Each blade must be cultured as a single nickel superalloy crystal within a vacuum furnace, and any flaw — even a hairline crack — renders the part unusable, according to the outlet, which cited SemiAnalysis analyst Nigel Chiang. Chiang noted that yield losses at a newly built facility could exceed 50 percent for years.

The process is also closely guarded. Howmet CEO John Plant, speaking at an investor meeting earlier this year, explained that the ceramic cores and wax molds are deliberately destroyed once parts come off the line, closing off any path for rivals to copy the technique.

Sector analysts estimate a new factory would take at least four years to come online. The vacuum furnaces at the heart of the process take more than two years to procure, and key technical positions demand six months to a year of on-the-job training before workers are fully proficient.

Morgan Stanley's report concluded that the foundry's output would likely remain internal, with no expectation that SpaceX would become a commercial seller of the components. AI workloads impose heavy and variable demands on turbines, making a captive parts supply particularly valuable for xAI's data center operations.

SpaceX designs and manufactures a significant portion of its components in-house, including rocket engines and avionics, according to its IPO filing.

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