SpaceX's initial public offering (IPO) in June saw the space exploration company valued at $1.77 trillion. Its share price surged by 50% in the first three days of trading, although it has since fallen back.
The company is now largely considered an AI company after merging with xAI, Elon Musk's AI company and maker of the Grok LLM suite, earlier this year. SpaceX's IPO prospectus identified a $28.5 trillion total addressable market, with $26.5 trillion attributed to AI.
The convergence of AI and space technology is creating new investment opportunities. The concept of orbital data centres, which are data centres in space, is developing, with start-up Starcloud raising $250 million in August at a $2.3 billion valuation. Nvidia and Cisco were among the investors in this round.
Nvidia's chief financial officer, Colette Kress, confirmed that SpaceX is among the partners receiving the company's latest generation chip, Vera CPU. Nvidia also holds a stake in SpaceX through an earlier investment in xAI.
Investors can access the space sector through companies like Rocket Lab and AST SpaceMobile, or via thematic exchange-traded funds (ETFs) such as the WisdomTree Space Economy UCITS ETF or the Seraphim New Space UCITS ETF, which launched today, 2 September.