SpaceX selects Qualcomm to accelerate Starlink Mobile’s nationwide 5G network

Today, we’re announcing an agreement with SpaceX to provide Qualcomm Dragonwing Cellular Infrastructure solutions for Starlink Mobile’s nationwide terrestrial base stations in the U.S.

Powered by Qualcomm Dragonwing QRU100 and QDU100 platforms and commercial-grade Layer 1 software, the network will combine high-capacity Massive MIMO radio and baseband technology with power-efficient processing to support cellular base station deployment at scale.

Starlink Mobile will use Massive MIMO radio units with 64 transmit and 64 receive paths, or 64T64R, designed to improve coverage, capacity and spectral efficiency. The Qualcomm Dragonwing QRU100 platform provides highly integrated processing for Massive MIMO radio units, while the QDU100 platform delivers high-performance, efficient Layer 1 processing.

We’ve designed these platforms with efficiency in mind, improving performance per watt across radio and distributed-unit processing to help improve network deployment economics at scale. SpaceX plans for U.S. nationwide deployment to begin in 2027, with tens of thousands of sites planned over the multi-year agreement.

And we’re looking beyond 5G. The collaboration also represents a commercial step toward SpaceX and Qualcomm’s broader vision for AI-native 6G infrastructure.

Our work with SpaceX is another example of the breadth of what we’re building at Qualcomm, bringing computing, connectivity and intelligence together across everything from personal devices to large-scale infrastructure.