The bet is that demand for AI tokens will continue to grow exponentially. And that SpaceX will be able to deploy and rent out GPUs to serve those tokens faster than anyone else.
replyThe wrinkle is that they are planning to deploy those GPUs in space. That’s what people are most skeptical about, I think!
Space data centers need years of time to design, build, and deploy, 5-10 at least, and that's after they solve their multiple very difficult or impossible problems. How will they cool them? There are just simple ideas like giant structures to radiate the heat away, but you say you need to put lots of mass in orbit?
replyLike fsd, will take decades to figure things out.
SpaceX already has 10,000 satellites on orbit that are basically preview versions of space data centers. They've already paid 5 years of that 5-10 year timeline you outlined.
replyWell yes it will be hard, and hence maybe not economical, and that’s why many people are skeptical of the business case (myself included btw).
replyBut satellite cooling already exists (Starlink v2 satellites dissipate heat at over a kilowatt I believe), so that’s why other people find it plausible.
They also need Starship at minimum, which is now a 10+ year old project still exploding regularly.
replyStarship is at minimum a 2030 project at this point.
And even producing the volume of chips needed for the type of growth space data centers would need to have to justify this would be another decade if construction started now on those fabs.
A minimum of 2030? That seems excessively pessimistic.
replyGoogle and friends continue to see increased demand for their wares. The bet is probably that SpaceX is one of the best-placed companies to deliver incremental compute. They've shown they can build data centers fast.
reply