On Friday, when SpaceX filed plans with the Federal Communications Fee (FCC) for a million-satellite information heart community, you may need thought Elon Musk was having a little bit of enjoyable with us. However per week later, it’s clear that he’s lifeless severe.
The obvious step, in fact, is the formal merger between SpaceX and xAI that went ahead on Monday, formally drawing collectively Musk’s area and AI ventures in a approach that makes much more sense if there’s some form of joint infrastructure undertaking deliberate.
However even past the merger, we’re beginning to see the thought of orbital AI information clusters — primarily, networks of computer systems working in area — cohere into an precise plan. On Wednesday, the FCC accepted the submitting and set a schedule in search of public remark. It’s a professional forma step usually, however FCC chairman Brendan Carr took the bizarre step of sharing the submitting on X. All through his tenure as chairman, Carr has proven himself keen to assist Trump’s pals and punish his enemies — so so long as Musk stays on Trump’s good facet, the proposal is more likely to sail by way of with out concern.
On the identical time, Elon Musk has began to flesh out the argument for orbital information facilities in public. On a brand new episode of John Collison’s podcast “Cheeky Pint,” which additionally featured visitor Dwarkesh Patel, Musk laid out the fundamental case for shifting most of our AI computing energy into area. Basically, photo voltaic panels produce extra energy in area, so you may minimize down on one of many primary working bills for information facilities.
“It’s more durable to scale on the bottom than it’s to scale in area,” Musk mentioned within the podcast. “Any given photo voltaic panel goes to offer you about 5 occasions extra energy in area than on the bottom, so it’s really less expensive to do in area.”
Shut listeners will notice that there’s a little bit of a spot within the logic right here! It’s true that photo voltaic panels produce extra energy in area, however since energy isn’t the one value in working a knowledge heart and photo voltaic panels aren’t the one option to energy a knowledge heart, it doesn’t comply with that it’s cheaper to do the entire thing in orbit, as Patel famous within the podcast. Patel additionally raised considerations about servicing GPUs that fail throughout AI mannequin coaching, however you’ll need to take heed to the complete episode for that.
General, Musk was undeterred, marking 2028 as a tipping level yr for orbital information facilities. “You may mark my phrases, in 36 months however in all probability nearer to 30 months, essentially the most economically compelling place to place AI will probably be area,” Musk mentioned.
Techcrunch occasion
Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026
He didn’t cease there. “5 years from now, my prediction is we are going to launch and be working yearly extra AI in area than the cumulative complete on Earth,” Musk continued.
For context, as of 2030, world information heart capability will probably be an estimated 200 GW, which is roughly a trillion {dollars}’ value of infrastructure while you’re simply placing it on the bottom.
In fact, SpaceX makes its cash by launching issues into orbit, so all that is fairly handy for Musk — notably now that SpaceX has an AI firm connected to it. And with the brand new SpaceX-xAI conglomerate headed for an IPO in only a few months, you may anticipate to listen to much more about orbital information facilities within the months forward. With tech firms nonetheless pouring lots of of billions of {dollars} into information heart spending annually, there’s an actual likelihood that not all the cash will stay earthbound.
Correction: An earlier model of this put up misidentified the host of Cheeky Pint. Trendster regrets the error.
