There was a time when financial markets valued companies on the basis of what they produced, what they earned and what they could reasonably be expected to achieve. Those principles have not disappeared, but every so often investors suspend conventional judgment and place their faith in a future that has yet to be built. The extraordinary enthusiasm surrounding SpaceX’s stock-market debut belongs firmly in that category. Viewed through the lens of traditional valuation, the numbers make little sense.

Rocket launches, however technologically impressive, do not generate the kind of revenues that justify a market capitalisation of more than $2 trillion at the close of the IPO. Even satellite broadband services, successful as they have become, struggle to bridge the gap between current earnings and astronomical market capitalisation. The explanation, therefore, lies elsewhere. What investors appear to be buying is not the company that exists today but the possibility of the company it might become tomorrow. Artificial intelligence has unleashed an unprecedented race for computing power.

Data centres already consume enormous quantities of electricity and face increasing........

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