# Musk Says AI Agents Could Drive a 1,000-Fold Rise in Bandwidth Demand

By Simon Yoon

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/40652
Published: 2026-10-25T19:09:09.000Z
Updated: 2026-10-25T19:09:09.000Z
Section: Technology

> He forecasts Starlink capacity will rise about 100-fold in three years, while its consumer subscriber base reached 13.6 million at the end of September.

Elon Musk expects AI agents to push global bandwidth needs as high as 1,000 times current levels within three to five years, a forecast that underpins SpaceX’s planned satellite expansion.

Musk made the projection during SpaceX’s third-quarter call Tuesday, Oct. 20. He said each AI agent could use more bandwidth than a person and that agents could outnumber people. He separately forecast that Starlink’s network capacity would reach roughly 100 times its current level in about three years.

Musk linked the capacity target to a constellation of roughly 100,000 satellites, each with more than 10 times the bandwidth of satellites in today’s system. He said Starship Flight 14 deployed 26 terabits per second of Starlink bandwidth, equivalent to 10 Falcon 9 launches, although it carried about half a full load. The call did not quantify Starlink’s expected share of worldwide internet traffic. SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell described that share as significant.

Starlink had 13.6 million consumer subscribers as of Sept. 30, up from 7.2 million a year earlier. SpaceX’s Connectivity segment generated $5.25 billion in third-quarter revenue, up 69% year over year, and $2.37 billion in operating income, up 99%. Average monthly revenue per consumer subscriber was $69, down from $83 a year earlier.

Consumer revenue totaled $3.12 billion, while enterprise and government revenue reached $2.13 billion, up 91% year over year. Shotwell said enterprise and government revenue is expected to overtake consumer revenue. Those figures measure different parts of the plan: Musk’s 1,000-fold estimate concerns global demand, while the 100-fold target covers Starlink’s capacity. The call gave no numerical traffic share or price for that added capacity.

Shotwell cited connected vehicles, robots and wider adoption of superintelligence as forces that could push communications demand beyond traditional person-to-person use. She expects Starlink eventually to carry a significant share of global internet traffic.

The capacity expansion depends on Starship putting satellites into orbit at scale. Musk said the next Starship flight, expected in November, would attempt to recover both the booster and spacecraft, but warned the attempt could fail. He said SpaceX aims to fly Starship weekly in the first half of 2027.