Elon Musk wants to put AI data centres in space to clear up one in all synthetic intelligence’s greatest issues on Earth: energy and cooling prices.
| Photograph Credit score:
DENIS BALIBOUSE
A proposed merger between
Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI, reported completely by Reuters on
Thursday, may give contemporary momentum to Musk’s plan to launch
satellite tv for pc data facilities into orbit as he battles for supremacy in
the quickly escalating AI race towards tech giants like
Alphabet’s Google, Meta and OpenAI.
Here’s what we learn about space-based AI computing:
WHAT ARE SPACE-BASED AI DATA CENTERS?
Space-based data facilities – nonetheless an early-stage idea –
would seemingly depend on lots of of solar-powered satellites
networked in orbit to deal with the big computing calls for of
AI methods like xAI’s Grok or OpenAI’s ChatGPT, at a time when
energy-hungry Earth-based services have gotten more and more
expensive to run. Advocates say working above the environment
gives almost fixed solar energy and eliminates the cooling
burdens that dominate ground-based data-center prices,
probably making AI processing way more environment friendly.
However engineers and space specialists warning that industrial
viability stays years away, citing main dangers from space
particles, defending {hardware} towards cosmic radiation, restricted
choices for in-person upkeep, and launch prices. Deutsche
Financial institution expects the primary small-scale orbital data-center
deployments in 2027–28 to check each the know-how and the
economics, with wider constellations — probably scaling into
the lots of or 1000’s— rising solely in the 2030s if these
early missions work.
WHY DOES MUSK WANT TO DO THIS?
SpaceX is essentially the most profitable rocket-maker in historical past and
has efficiently launched 1000’s of satellites into orbit as
a part of its Starlink web service. If space-based AI
computing is the longer term, SpaceX is essentially the most ideally positioned to
function AI-ready satellite tv for pc clusters or facilitate the organising
of on-orbit computing.
“It is a no-brainer constructing solar-power data facilities in space
… the lowest-cost place to put AI can be space, and that may
be true inside two years, three on the newest,” Musk stated on the
World Financial Discussion board in Davos earlier this month.
SpaceX is contemplating an preliminary public providing this 12 months
that would worth the rocket and satellite tv for pc firm at over $1
trillion, Reuters has reported. A part of the proceeds would go to
funding the event of AI data heart satellites, sources
say.
WHAT ARE MUSK’S COMPETITORS DOING?
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has been engaged on know-how for
AI data facilities in space, constructing on the Amazon
founder’s prediction that “big gigawatt data facilities” in orbit
may beat the price of their Earth-bound friends inside 10 to 20
years by tapping uninterrupted solar energy and radiating warmth
immediately into space.
Nvidia-backed Starcloud has already provided a
glimpse of that future: its Starcloud-1 satellite tv for pc, launched on a
Falcon 9 final month, carries an Nvidia H100 – essentially the most highly effective
AI chip ever positioned in orbit – and is coaching and working
Google’s open-source Gemma mannequin as a proof of idea. The
firm in the end envisions a modular “hypercluster” of
satellites offering about 5 gigawatts of computing energy,
comparable to a number of hyperscale data facilities mixed.
Google is pushing the space-based data heart thought with
Mission Suncatcher, a analysis effort to community solar-powered
satellites outfitted with its Tensor Processing Items into an
orbital AI cloud. The corporate plans an preliminary prototype launch
with associate Planet Labs round 2027.
China additionally plans to create a “Space Cloud” by launching
space-based synthetic intelligence data facilities over the subsequent
5 years, state media reported on Thursday. China’s most important space
contractor, China Aerospace Science and Know-how Company,
vowed to “assemble gigawatt-class space digital-intelligence
infrastructure,” in accordance to a five-year growth plan.
Printed on January 30, 2026
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