SpaceX says it will launch Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 rack to orbit next year

Elon Musk used his X account to state that SpaceX will launch at least one Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale system into low-Earth orbit in Q4 of next year, with a plan to scale up the effort by 2028. Nvidia’s accompanying press release details the configuration: 72 Rubin GPUs, 36 Vera CPUs, ConnectX-9 SuperNICs, BlueField-4 DPUs, and NVLink switch trays, together weighing roughly 4,000 lb. The Falcon 9, SpaceX’s primary launcher, can lift 22,800 kg to orbit and has a fairing large enough to hold multiple such racks.

The satellite design calls for a 210 kW solar array and liquid-cooled radiators, but the hardware has yet to be built for space. Neither party defined what “space-optimized” entails, though the article assumes radiation hardening and launch-stress mitigation. While the proposal is technically plausible, the timeline remains uncertain given the engineering hurdles involved.