Amazon has greater than 900 data centers unfold throughout the planet. And should you ask Matt Garman, the CEO of Amazon Net Providers, that’s precisely the place they’ll keep for the foreseeable future.
Talking at a tech convention in San Francisco on Tuesday, Garman threw some chilly water on the notion of space-based data centers, which have been touted by Elon Musk and others as the way forward for AI.
Whereas placing AI data centers in space has apparent advantages, together with the power to harness vitality straight from the solar and the power to chill the heat-generating gear within the chilly environment of space, Garman mentioned there are additionally some large obstacles to placing data centers in space or on different planets. Chief amongst them is the price of transporting gear.
“I don’t know should you’ve seen a rack of servers these days: They’re heavy,” Garman mentioned in an interview on the Cisco AI Summit in reply to a query concerning the viability of space-based data centers. “And final I checked, humanity has but to construct a everlasting construction in space. So … perhaps.”
The feedback come someday after Musk introduced the merger of SpaceX, his rocket firm, together with his AI firm, xAI, in a deal that reportedly values the mixed corporations at a staggering $1.25 billion.
“The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a actuality will fund and allow self-growing bases on the Moon, a complete civilization on Mars, and in the end enlargement to the Universe,” Musk wrote in a weblog publish Monday saying the deal.
The fashionable data centers that energy AI companies, together with chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and xAI’s Grok, are large behemoths that may span hundreds of thousands of sq. ft and are filled with a lot {hardware} that they need to be constructed on prime of bolstered concrete slabs.
Musk’s SpaceX has a profitable monitor file of launching 1000’s of its internet-beaming Starlink satellites into orbit on its Falcon rockets, and Musk has floated bold plans to make use of its Starship rocket to launch as many as 1 million satellites into space—an quantity that’s far better than the overall variety of objects launched into space in historical past. The blizzard of Starlink launches would result in enhancements in SpaceX’s rockets that can make space based mostly data centers a actuality, Musk wrote on Monday, although he didn’t present a timeline for when he anticipated it to occur.
Amazon has plans to create a constellation of web beaming satellites, dubbed Leo, to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink. The corporate has earmarked $10 billion for the venture, in line with CNBC, however progress has been gradual, with Amazon just lately asking the U.S. FCC to increase the timeline to launch 1,600 Leo satellites.
Garman cited Musk’s 1-million-satellite plan in the course of the Tuesday discuss, and acknowledged that enhancements in gas and different points will make transportation into space inexpensive. However for now, he burdened, the prices are a significant bottleneck.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
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