Elon Musk confirmed Tuesday that SpaceX will deploy Starmind, an AI satellite megaconstellation planned to be 100 times larger than current Starlink, consisting of approximately 1 million satellites operating as distributed orbital data centres powered by near-constant solar energy.

Starmind would dwarf this network, fundamentally reshaping orbital infrastructure by turning space into a computational resource.

What is Starmind? 

He described the project in ambitious terms: The deployment of a satellite network numbering in the millions is "a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilisation, one that can harness the sun's full power."

This refers to a hypothetical classification system for civilisations based on their energy consumption, with Level II civilisations being capable of using all of their star’s energy output.

As opposed to the earthbound data centres that depend on grid power, Starmind satellites would be able to harness unlimited solar energy in space.

"By directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or maintenance cost, these satellites will transform our ability to scale compute," Musk wrote in a February 2026 update. "It's always sunny in space!" he quipped.

This solution saves the expense of cooling, which is one of the largest costs associated with running data centres on Earth, as well as reliance on the power grid, which is becoming a difficult hurdle to overcome while developing AI infrastructure around the world.

Before, the company had used the concept of "Falcon", where they named their first rockets and engines (Merlin, Kestrel) after fictional spaceships and birds of prey in "Star Wars". All of Starship, Starbase, Starlink, Starshield, and Starfall have used the stars in their names. The only bird-of-prey engine remaining is the raptor.