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SpaceX Boosts Tesla Megapack Purchases To Support AI Expansion

SpaceX spent $329 million on Tesla’s Megapack battery systems during the first half of 2026, highlighting the growing energy demands of the company’s expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure.

According to SpaceX’s latest earnings report, $295 million of those purchases were made during the second quarter alone, marking a sharp increase in investment in large-scale energy storage.

Powering AI Infrastructure

The battery systems are expected to support SpaceX’s AI data centre operations, where electricity demand fluctuates significantly as computing workloads increase during AI training and inference.

Megapacks help stabilise power consumption by storing electricity and providing additional capacity during periods of peak demand, while also serving as backup power in the event of outages.

Growing Links Across Musk’s Companies

The purchases further illustrate the close operational ties between Elon Musk’s businesses. Before merging with SpaceX earlier this year, xAI had also invested heavily in Tesla’s battery storage systems for its own data centres.

SpaceX’s regulatory filing also showed the company had previously purchased $131 million worth of Tesla Cybertrucks, reflecting continued commercial activity between Musk-led companies.

AI Drives Infrastructure Investment

As AI companies expand computing capacity, demand for energy infrastructure is rising alongside investment in data centres. Battery storage has become an increasingly important component of those facilities, helping operators manage electricity costs while maintaining stable performance during intensive computing workloads.

Apple Ties Its Mac Strategy To The AI Boom With New Mac Mini And Mac Studio Models

Apple has updated its Mac Mini and Mac Studio desktops with new processors and higher AI performance as developers increasingly use Macs for local AI workloads. The new models are scheduled to ship on Sept. 22, weeks before the company is expected to introduce its next iPhone generation.

Macs Target Local AI Development

Developers and researchers are increasingly using Apple computers to run AI models locally, reducing reliance on cloud infrastructure. Mac Mini systems can support AI agent software, while Mac Studio machines are designed for more demanding model training and deployment workloads.

Apple said its processors combine Neural Engines for machine learning with unified memory architecture designed to reduce performance bottlenecks. The company says the combination allows users to run and fine-tune larger AI models directly on their devices.

Mac Mini Gets First M6 Generation Chip

The updated Mac Mini can be configured with Apple’s M6 and M5 Pro processors, making it the company’s first computer with an M6-generation chip. The M6 is manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) using a 2-nanometer process.

The previous Mac Mini lineup offered M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max processors. Apple said the M5 Pro version of the new model can process large language model prompts 8.5 times faster than earlier Mac Mini Pro configurations.

Pricing has also increased. The new Mac Mini starts at $899, $100 more than the previous model, after Apple raised the price from $599 earlier this summer, citing higher memory costs.

Mac Studio Targets Larger AI Workloads

Mac Studio remains Apple’s highest-performance desktop without an integrated display, following the discontinuation of the Mac Pro earlier this year. New configurations include the M5 Max, which Apple says can run large language models nearly four times faster than the previous generation.

The M5 Ultra is available for users with heavier computing requirements. Apple says multiple Mac Studio systems using the Ultra chip can be connected to pool memory and run models with up to a trillion parameters.

Mac Studio with the M5 Max starts at $2,499, unchanged from the previous generation. The M5 Ultra configuration starts at $5,499, compared with at least $5,299 for the previous model using the M3 Ultra.

Apple Expands Its Local AI Hardware

The new desktops give developers and researchers more computing capacity for running AI models locally. Apple is also increasing the role of its custom processors and unified memory architecture in handling AI workloads without relying entirely on cloud-based computing.

Both Mac Mini and Mac Studio models are available for presale and are scheduled to begin shipping on Sept. 22.

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