Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk race to bring data centers to space

Space companies backed by tech billionaires hope to move AI data centers off Earth

- Micah Maidenberg & Becky Peterson

Deploying satellites as data centers, the thinking goes, would allow the AI industry to avoid Earthly headaches.

(REUTERS)

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have raced for years to build rockets and launch satellites. Now they're racing to take the trillion-dollar data-center boom into orbit.

Bezos’ Blue Origin has had a team working for more than a year on technology needed for orbital AI data centers, a person familiar with the matter said. Musk’s SpaceX plans to use an upgraded version of its Starlink satellites to host AI computing payloads, pitching the technology as part of a share sale that could value the company at $800 billion, according to people involved in the discussions.

Deploying satellites that provide significant AI computing capability will present difficult engineering hurdles and pose tough questions about the price of deploying swarms of the devices into orbit.

Advocates acknowledge the challenges of making these systems work, including doing so in a manner that would match the performance of cavernous data centers stuffed with AI chips on the ground. Skeptics believe the technical risks are being underestimated and say space-based data centers won't be competitive on cost, especially if power and other constraints ease on the ground.