Mississippi could be a catalyst in the next great human advancement – the data and AI race with China. This month, SpaceX and xAI founder Elon Musk declared space the next battleground in this competition, envisioning orbital data centers powered by endless solar energy and made possible by Starship-scale launches. These facilities, he says, will soon outpace the limits we face on Earth: power shortages, cooling costs, land constraints. Musk believes they could become cost-effective in just two to three years.
SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin have their own built-in advantages. But the rest of the industry, along with future competitors, will need proven, large-scale rocket engine testing. The best place on the planet for that testing sits right here in Hancock County, Mississippi, at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center. You can’t get to space without going through Mississippi.
Orbital data centers will require massive, frequent payloads. Only medium- to heavy-lift rockets make that practical. In my role as President and CEO of the Mississippi Enterprise for Technology (MSET), I’ve seen firsthand how companies like Relativity Space and Rocket Lab have poured hundreds of millions into Stennis to develop exactly these engines. These SpaceX competitors matter. They’re helping build a resilient, private-sector-led American space economy, and it’s happening in our backyard.
Getting to orbit is only half the story. Mississippi is already becoming a major player in terrestrial data centers, and our state leaders have already done a lot to put us in this position. In 2024 and 2025, Governor Tate Reeves and the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) landed tens of billions in private investment along the I-20 corridor, including two huge AWS projects. Those deals are creating thousands of jobs and ripple effects we’re only starting to see. Then, in early 2026, xAI committed another $20+ billion for supercomputing facilities in DeSoto County. This ground infrastructure gives us scalability right now, while orbital concepts mature.
That’s what sets Mississippi apart in this high-stakes competition. Because of this collaboration, we offer a true quadruple-track advantage: world-class supercomputing on American soil today, the rocket testing backbone for space tomorrow, proven state and federal partnerships, and education centers to develop future leaders and homegrown talent.
The Chinese Communist Party is pouring massive state subsidies into giant power plants to fuel exascale computing and dominate artificial intelligence, including its military applications. Their government-backed rocket program launches with increasing frequency and success. And they remain America’s only near-peer competitor in developing space-based solar power technology, part of a broader strategy to control critical orbits and deny access to adversaries.
If we allow China to win this race through central planning and intellectual property theft, we don’t just risk technological leadership. We put our national security and economic freedom on the line. The U.S. can’t depend solely on coastal hubs. We need places like Mississippi that are distributed, creative, and driven by the private sector to stay ahead.
Governor Reeves and MDA Executive Director Bill Cork have backed these projects with serious investment. Senator Scott Delano led the effort to transform the state’s tech transfer office into the Office of Space and Technology, making MSET the main bridge between Mississippi government and the space and deep-tech industries. The Mississippi Aerospace and Defense Symposium brings global decision-makers to our state to see what we’re building. Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith have fought hard in Washington to keep federal funding flowing to Stennis.
Still, we can’t let up. We need to keep strengthening the technical training programs we already do so well. We need more programs like Pearl River Community College’s Aviation and Aerospace Academy at Stennis International Airport. We should use special dedicated sources like RESTORE and the Gulf Coast Restoration Fund to get even more sites ready for space-tech and deep-tech companies.
And we have to grow the partnerships that are already working, like the one I lead at MSET that pulls together MDA, NASA, our research universities, and private industry. That collaboration ensures university research lines up with what companies actually need, and that our graduates are able to hit the ground running. Sometimes that means changing how state institutions operate. But real innovation always requires it.
Mississippi isn’t just chasing the future. With our federal assets, supercomputing power, rocket testing know-how, and homegrown talent, we’re actively building the bridge to it. That translates into high-paying jobs for our families, lasting technological leadership for America, and a genuine strategic advantage against authoritarian challengers in the decades ahead. We just can’t let off the gas – or rocket fuel.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of SuperTalk Mississippi Media.