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With just a quick look into some basic physics and logistics of putting a data center in space, the idea becomes comical. First, you have to put massive amounts of hardware, cooling systems, and power into space. Then you have to completely reengineer the data center for space. Then... show more

Peter Zeihan

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29,203 views • 3 days ago •via X (Twitter)

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"The most important thing in the next 3-4 years is data centers in space. In every way, data centers in space, from a first principles perspective, are superior to data centers on earth. In space, you can keep a satellite in the sun 24 hours a day. The sun is 30% more intense, which results in six times more irradiance than on Earth. So you don't need a battery. The cooling in these data centers is incredibly complicated. Space cooling is free. You just put a radiator on the dark side of the satellite. The only thing faster than a laser going through a fiber optic cable is a laser going through absolute vacuum. Link satellites with lasers, and you have a faster and more coherent network than any data center on Earth."

"The most important thing in the next 3-4 years is data centers in space. In every way, data centers in space, from a first principles perspective, are superior to data centers on earth. In space, you can keep a satellite in the sun 24 hours a day. The sun is 30% more intense, which results in six times more irradiance than on Earth. So you don't need a battery. The cooling in these data centers is incredibly complicated. Space cooling is free. You just put a radiator on the dark side of the satellite. The only thing faster than a laser going through a fiber optic cable is a laser going through absolute vacuum. Link satellites with lasers, and you have a faster and more coherent network than any data center on Earth."

Patrick OShaughnessy

8,213,913 views • 7 months ago

The lowest cost place for data centers is space when 300 GW of computer data center you can power and cool in space when you have continuous solar and no batteries needed. Elon Musk

The lowest cost place for data centers is space when 300 GW of computer data center you can power and cool in space when you have continuous solar and no batteries needed. Elon Musk

Marc Benioff

174,142 views • 8 months ago

Why space servers FAIL Execs want to put data centers in space, but there's a massive physics problem: vacuums have no convection cooling. Discover why cooling servers in space relies purely on infrared radiation! Big thanks to ThreatLocker for sponsoring my trip to ZTW26 and also for sponsoring this video. To start your free trial with ThreatLocker please use the following link:

Why space servers FAIL Execs want to put data centers in space, but there's a massive physics problem: vacuums have no convection cooling. Discover why cooling servers in space relies purely on infrared radiation! Big thanks to ThreatLocker for sponsoring my trip to ZTW26 and also for sponsoring this video. To start your free trial with ThreatLocker please use the following link:

David Bombal

466,646 views • 3 months ago

Elon Musk: The lowest cost place to put AI data centers will be space ---- “The lowest cost place to put AI will be space. I think the case is a no-brainer for building AI, solar-powered AI data centers in space because, as you mentioned, it's also very cold in space. If you're in the shadow, then it's very cold in space, just 3 degrees Kelvin. So you just have your solar panels facing the Sun and then a radiator that's like pointed away from the Sun, so it has no Sun incidence and then it's just cooling. It's a very efficient cooling system. So the net effect is that the lowest cost place to put AI will be space and that'll be true within two years, maybe three, three at the latest.”

Elon Musk: The lowest cost place to put AI data centers will be space ---- “The lowest cost place to put AI will be space. I think the case is a no-brainer for building AI, solar-powered AI data centers in space because, as you mentioned, it's also very cold in space. If you're in the shadow, then it's very cold in space, just 3 degrees Kelvin. So you just have your solar panels facing the Sun and then a radiator that's like pointed away from the Sun, so it has no Sun incidence and then it's just cooling. It's a very efficient cooling system. So the net effect is that the lowest cost place to put AI will be space and that'll be true within two years, maybe three, three at the latest.”

Beanie👾

1,098,071 views • 5 months ago

Data centers in space are a "no brainer." SpaceX's 1st employee Tom Mueller (Tom Mueller) on Elon Musk's plan to move compute into space: "It makes the most sense of anything to move to space. All you need as an input is power, and all you have as an output is data." "You move it to space, you have all the power you would ever need, and you transmit that data back down on a terawatt laser beam—it's solved. It's just so simple."

Data centers in space are a "no brainer." SpaceX's 1st employee Tom Mueller (Tom Mueller) on Elon Musk's plan to move compute into space: "It makes the most sense of anything to move to space. All you need as an input is power, and all you have as an output is data." "You move it to space, you have all the power you would ever need, and you transmit that data back down on a terawatt laser beam—it's solved. It's just so simple."

Molly O’Shea

357,424 views • 1 month ago

ASML CEO on Elon Musk's Data Centers in space and Terafab: "I think you need a certain amount of data centers and they will be in space, they will be on the earth. I think the discussion about data centers in space is to address another potential bottleneck in the ecosystem, which is energy. I think the discussion around putting data center in space is there because if you do that, the energy consumption or the energy availability will be there, about trying to solve another potential big issue, which is energy for data center. I think the Terafab is an example of a major fab project."

ASML CEO on Elon Musk's Data Centers in space and Terafab: "I think you need a certain amount of data centers and they will be in space, they will be on the earth. I think the discussion about data centers in space is to address another potential bottleneck in the ecosystem, which is energy. I think the discussion around putting data center in space is there because if you do that, the energy consumption or the energy availability will be there, about trying to solve another potential big issue, which is energy for data center. I think the Terafab is an example of a major fab project."

DogeDesigner

48,139 views • 1 month ago

Elon Musk says Space will be the lowest cost place to put AI within the next 2–3 years: “It’s a no brainer for building Solar-Powered AI Data Centers in space because, as you mentioned, it’s also very cold in space. If you’re in the shadow, then it’s very cold, just three degrees Kelvin. So you just have solar panels facing the sun and then a radiator that’s pointed away from the sun, so it has no sun incidence, and then it’s just cooling. It’s a very efficient cooling system. So, net effect is that the lowest cost place to put AI will be space, and that’ll be true within two years, maybe three at the latest.”

Elon Musk says Space will be the lowest cost place to put AI within the next 2–3 years: “It’s a no brainer for building Solar-Powered AI Data Centers in space because, as you mentioned, it’s also very cold in space. If you’re in the shadow, then it’s very cold, just three degrees Kelvin. So you just have solar panels facing the sun and then a radiator that’s pointed away from the sun, so it has no sun incidence, and then it’s just cooling. It’s a very efficient cooling system. So, net effect is that the lowest cost place to put AI will be space, and that’ll be true within two years, maybe three at the latest.”

Nic Cruz Patane

115,879 views • 6 months ago

"It's a no brainer for building solar powered AI data centers in space, you just have solar panels facing the sun, & a radiator that's pointed away from sun, then it's just cooling. The lowest cost place to put AI will be space, & that'll be true within 3 years." 一 Elon Musk

"It's a no brainer for building solar powered AI data centers in space, you just have solar panels facing the sun, & a radiator that's pointed away from sun, then it's just cooling. The lowest cost place to put AI will be space, & that'll be true within 3 years." 一 Elon Musk

DogeDesigner

6,132,939 views • 6 months ago

ELON MUSK: If you want million times more energy, then you must go to space "The way to think of AI in space is that in order to achieve any meaningful percentage of a Kardashev Type 2 civilization, where you are using even a millionth of the sun's energy, you must have solar-powered AI satellites in deep space Once you think in terms of a Kardashev Type 2 civilization, which is 'what percentage of the sun's energy are you turning into useful work,' then it becomes obvious that space is overwhelmingly what matters Earth only receives roughly one two-billionth of the sun's energy. So, if you want to have something that is, say, a million times more energy than Earth could possibly produce, you must go into space. And so, it’s kind of handy to have a space company, I guess"

ELON MUSK: If you want million times more energy, then you must go to space "The way to think of AI in space is that in order to achieve any meaningful percentage of a Kardashev Type 2 civilization, where you are using even a millionth of the sun's energy, you must have solar-powered AI satellites in deep space Once you think in terms of a Kardashev Type 2 civilization, which is 'what percentage of the sun's energy are you turning into useful work,' then it becomes obvious that space is overwhelmingly what matters Earth only receives roughly one two-billionth of the sun's energy. So, if you want to have something that is, say, a million times more energy than Earth could possibly produce, you must go into space. And so, it’s kind of handy to have a space company, I guess"

X Freeze

84,033 views • 8 months ago

Jim Cramer believes $CRWV could be a part of orbital data centers: “They have the best handle in the buildout. If you want to put a rocket into space with a data center, you might at least peruse CoreWeave’s work because that’s the one that knows how to build them fast.”

Jim Cramer believes $CRWV could be a part of orbital data centers: “They have the best handle in the buildout. If you want to put a rocket into space with a data center, you might at least peruse CoreWeave’s work because that’s the one that knows how to build them fast.”

Small Cap Snipa

24,132 views • 1 month ago

The difference between a Harvard Business School student and a Founder. HBS STUDENT: Lists all the reasons AI Space Compute is hard. FOUNDER: “ I don't disagree with you that building data centers in space is hard. Building data centers in space is extremely hard. . . If you think [demand] is going to double in the next three years - demand for energy from just data centers - and then double in the next three years after that, and then double in the next three years after that, then: We don’t have a choice. We literally have to put data centers in space. So we have to figure this stuff out.” Philip Johnston Starcloud Founders solve problems. Founders KNOW it will be HARD and do it anyway because it simply NEEDS TO BE DONE. That is founder mindset - and that mindset is what Harvard Business School can’t teach.

The difference between a Harvard Business School student and a Founder. HBS STUDENT: Lists all the reasons AI Space Compute is hard. FOUNDER: “ I don't disagree with you that building data centers in space is hard. Building data centers in space is extremely hard. . . If you think [demand] is going to double in the next three years - demand for energy from just data centers - and then double in the next three years after that, and then double in the next three years after that, then: We don’t have a choice. We literally have to put data centers in space. So we have to figure this stuff out.” Philip Johnston Starcloud Founders solve problems. Founders KNOW it will be HARD and do it anyway because it simply NEEDS TO BE DONE. That is founder mindset - and that mindset is what Harvard Business School can’t teach.

Amy

19,909 views • 4 months ago

ELON MUSK: "Space solar actually costs less than terrestrial solar because you don't need heavy glass or framing to protect it from extreme weather events. So as soon as the cost to orbit drops to a low number, it immediately makes extremely compelling sense to put AI in space. It becomes a no brainer. Basically, more of a as you go to space, you get increased economies of scale, and things get easier over time, whereas as you try to put more and more power on the ground, you run out of space and you start using up the easy spots, and then you get next level. Nobody wants the thing in their backyard. So then increasing power on earth has becomes harder over time and more expensive over time, but in space it becomes actually cheaper and easier over time."

ELON MUSK: "Space solar actually costs less than terrestrial solar because you don't need heavy glass or framing to protect it from extreme weather events. So as soon as the cost to orbit drops to a low number, it immediately makes extremely compelling sense to put AI in space. It becomes a no brainer. Basically, more of a as you go to space, you get increased economies of scale, and things get easier over time, whereas as you try to put more and more power on the ground, you run out of space and you start using up the easy spots, and then you get next level. Nobody wants the thing in their backyard. So then increasing power on earth has becomes harder over time and more expensive over time, but in space it becomes actually cheaper and easier over time."

DogeDesigner

19,049,949 views • 4 months ago

🚨 NVIDIA JUST ANNOUNCED DATA CENTERS IN SPACE Jensen Huang: >we’re going into space >we’ve already been out in space >announces “Vera Rubin Space-1” >"in space there's no conduction, no convection, just radiation" >"we have to figure out how to cool these systems in space" >"we've got lots of great engineers working on it" GPUs IN SPACE INCOMING

🚨 NVIDIA JUST ANNOUNCED DATA CENTERS IN SPACE Jensen Huang: >we’re going into space >we’ve already been out in space >announces “Vera Rubin Space-1” >"in space there's no conduction, no convection, just radiation" >"we have to figure out how to cool these systems in space" >"we've got lots of great engineers working on it" GPUs IN SPACE INCOMING

NIK

368,467 views • 4 months ago

ELON MUSK PREDICTS SPACE WILL BE THE CHEAPEST PLACE TO RUN AI INFERENCE “I think the case is a no-brainer for building solar-powered AI data centers in space” In space, you get unlimited solar power with panels facing the sun In the shadow, it’s freezing cold - just 3 Kelvin - giving you an incredibly efficient natural cooling system with a radiator pointed away from the sun

ELON MUSK PREDICTS SPACE WILL BE THE CHEAPEST PLACE TO RUN AI INFERENCE “I think the case is a no-brainer for building solar-powered AI data centers in space” In space, you get unlimited solar power with panels facing the sun In the shadow, it’s freezing cold - just 3 Kelvin - giving you an incredibly efficient natural cooling system with a radiator pointed away from the sun

X Freeze

639,563 views • 5 months ago

ELON MUSK: "The most obvious one is actually solar powered AI satellites, sort of to move the AI to orbit and essentially deep space over time, because there you can actually access over a billion times more energy from the sun in deep space than you can on Earth. The scaling to Kardashev, which is using some non trivial amount of energy from the sun. You kind of have to do space solar power. Like to even use a millionth of a percent of the sun's energy you you really have to be have your solar power in deep space."

ELON MUSK: "The most obvious one is actually solar powered AI satellites, sort of to move the AI to orbit and essentially deep space over time, because there you can actually access over a billion times more energy from the sun in deep space than you can on Earth. The scaling to Kardashev, which is using some non trivial amount of energy from the sun. You kind of have to do space solar power. Like to even use a millionth of a percent of the sun's energy you you really have to be have your solar power in deep space."

DogeDesigner

266,777 views • 8 months ago

$This is the next big plan for SpaceX: AI Data Centers in Space. • To achieve even a small fraction of a Kardashev Type II civilization (harnessing the full energy of the Sun), AI compute will require orders of magnitude more energy than Earth can ever provide. • Earth only intercepts about 1–2 billionths of the Sun’s total energy output. • Massive-scale AI (e.g., a million times more energy than Earth could produce) can only be powered by capturing far more solar energy in space. • Space-based solar-powered AI satellites/compute clusters are therefore inevitable. • In space, sunlight is continuous (no night, no clouds, no atmosphere), so no batteries are needed. • Solar panels in space can be extremely lightweight and cheap (no glass, no storm-proof framing required). • Cooling in space is dramatically easier and simpler: just radiate heat directly into the cold vacuum — no water, no fans, no liquids, no massive cooling infrastructure. • Most of the mass/volume of current supercomputer racks (e.g., GB300) is cooling hardware; in space that largely disappears. • The cost-effectiveness of electricity and compute in space will soon be overwhelmingly better than on Earth. • Elon’s Prediction: within ~5 years (by ~2030), the lowest-cost way to run large-scale AI will be solar-powered satellites in space. • A terawatt/year of AI compute is essentially impossible on Earth with any realistic build-out of power plants. • Scaling both power generation and cooling on Earth at the required rate is physically and politically unfeasible.$

This is the next big plan for SpaceX: AI Data Centers in Space. • To achieve even a small fraction of a Kardashev Type II civilization (harnessing the full energy of the Sun), AI compute will require orders of magnitude more energy than Earth can ever provide. • Earth only intercepts about 1–2 billionths of the Sun’s total energy output. • Massive-scale AI (e.g., a million times more energy than Earth could produce) can only be powered by capturing far more solar energy in space. • Space-based solar-powered AI satellites/compute clusters are therefore inevitable. • In space, sunlight is continuous (no night, no clouds, no atmosphere), so no batteries are needed. • Solar panels in space can be extremely lightweight and cheap (no glass, no storm-proof framing required). • Cooling in space is dramatically easier and simpler: just radiate heat directly into the cold vacuum — no water, no fans, no liquids, no massive cooling infrastructure. • Most of the mass/volume of current supercomputer racks (e.g., GB300) is cooling hardware; in space that largely disappears. • The cost-effectiveness of electricity and compute in space will soon be overwhelmingly better than on Earth. • Elon’s Prediction: within ~5 years (by ~2030), the lowest-cost way to run large-scale AI will be solar-powered satellites in space. • A terawatt/year of AI compute is essentially impossible on Earth with any realistic build-out of power plants. • Scaling both power generation and cooling on Earth at the required rate is physically and politically unfeasible.

Nic Cruz Patane

49,019 views • 7 months ago

Elon Musk reveals why he believes the cheapest place to put AI will be space within 36 months "The availability of energy is the issue. Everywhere outside of China, electrical output is more or less flat. The output of chips is growing exponentially, but the output of electricity is flat" "How are you going to turn the chips on? Magical power sources? Magical electricity fairies?" "Space is really a regulatory play. It's harder to build on land than it is in space. It's harder to scale on the ground than it is to scale in space" "It's always sunny in space. You don't have a day-night cycle, seasonality, clouds, or an atmosphere. The atmosphere alone results in about a 30% loss of energy" "Any given solar panel can do about five times more power in space than on the ground. You also avoid the cost of having batteries to carry you through the night" "My prediction is that it will be by far the cheapest place to put AI. It will be space in 36 months or less. Maybe 30 months" "The only place you can really scale is space. Once you start thinking in terms of what percentage of the Sun's power you are harnessing, you realize you have to go to space" "Solar cells are already farcically cheap. In China they're around 25-30 cents a watt. Now put them in space, and it's not five times cheaper, it's 10 times cheaper because you don't need any batteries" "The moment your cost of access to space becomes low, by far the cheapest and most scalable way to generate tokens is space. It's not even close" "Those who have lived in software land don't realize they're about to have a hard lesson in hardware. It's actually very difficult to build power plants"

Elon Musk reveals why he believes the cheapest place to put AI will be space within 36 months "The availability of energy is the issue. Everywhere outside of China, electrical output is more or less flat. The output of chips is growing exponentially, but the output of electricity is flat" "How are you going to turn the chips on? Magical power sources? Magical electricity fairies?" "Space is really a regulatory play. It's harder to build on land than it is in space. It's harder to scale on the ground than it is to scale in space" "It's always sunny in space. You don't have a day-night cycle, seasonality, clouds, or an atmosphere. The atmosphere alone results in about a 30% loss of energy" "Any given solar panel can do about five times more power in space than on the ground. You also avoid the cost of having batteries to carry you through the night" "My prediction is that it will be by far the cheapest place to put AI. It will be space in 36 months or less. Maybe 30 months" "The only place you can really scale is space. Once you start thinking in terms of what percentage of the Sun's power you are harnessing, you realize you have to go to space" "Solar cells are already farcically cheap. In China they're around 25-30 cents a watt. Now put them in space, and it's not five times cheaper, it's 10 times cheaper because you don't need any batteries" "The moment your cost of access to space becomes low, by far the cheapest and most scalable way to generate tokens is space. It's not even close" "Those who have lived in software land don't realize they're about to have a hard lesson in hardware. It's actually very difficult to build power plants"

Jaynit

8,359,348 views • 1 month ago

NASA sent a woman to space, it ended how you would have expected. A mental breakdown, calls begging to come home- and when she didn’t get her way, she destroyed all of the space toilets, leaving everyone forced to wear diapers. She then sabotaged the experiments, and drilled holes in the space station walls- and then blamed the Russians. And you didn’t hear anything about it. Girl power!

NASA sent a woman to space, it ended how you would have expected. A mental breakdown, calls begging to come home- and when she didn’t get her way, she destroyed all of the space toilets, leaving everyone forced to wear diapers. She then sabotaged the experiments, and drilled holes in the space station walls- and then blamed the Russians. And you didn’t hear anything about it. Girl power!

Lauren Witzke

1,480,342 views • 2 years ago

Sam Altman in a new interview says Orbital Data Centers are not going to matter at scale this decade: “I honestly think the idea, with the current landscape of putting data centers in space is ridiculous. If you do the very rough math of launch costs relative to the cost of power on earth and to say nothing how you are going to fix a broken GPU in space— they do break a lot unfortunately— we are not there yet. There will be a time, space is great for a lot of things, Orbital Data Centers are not something that is going to matter at scale this decade.” This clip isn’t going to age well for Sam.

Sam Altman in a new interview says Orbital Data Centers are not going to matter at scale this decade: “I honestly think the idea, with the current landscape of putting data centers in space is ridiculous. If you do the very rough math of launch costs relative to the cost of power on earth and to say nothing how you are going to fix a broken GPU in space— they do break a lot unfortunately— we are not there yet. There will be a time, space is great for a lot of things, Orbital Data Centers are not something that is going to matter at scale this decade.” This clip isn’t going to age well for Sam.

Nic Cruz Patane

72,344 views • 5 months ago

ELON MUSK: “The way to expand compute is really in space. There’s a lot of room in space. And if you look at the size of Earth relative to the Sun or relative to the Solar System, you realize just how tiny it is. We’re very, very tiny. We only receive about half a billionth of the Sun’s energy. So you can really think of Earth as being like a tiny dust mote in a vast darkness. So the way to expand compute without, you know, using up all the land on Earth is to do so in space. And then you can do it without using space for power and water on Earth; you can just do it in space. So I think we’ll probably be launching our first AI satellites next year, and then we’ll be able to do that, I think, at large scale in about two years.”

ELON MUSK: “The way to expand compute is really in space. There’s a lot of room in space. And if you look at the size of Earth relative to the Sun or relative to the Solar System, you realize just how tiny it is. We’re very, very tiny. We only receive about half a billionth of the Sun’s energy. So you can really think of Earth as being like a tiny dust mote in a vast darkness. So the way to expand compute without, you know, using up all the land on Earth is to do so in space. And then you can do it without using space for power and water on Earth; you can just do it in space. So I think we’ll probably be launching our first AI satellites next year, and then we’ll be able to do that, I think, at large scale in about two years.”

DogeDesigner

65,218 views • 16 days ago