Posted on 01/31/2026 3:27:11 AM PST by SmokingJoe
BREAKING: SpaceX wants to turn Space into the World’s Biggest AI Data Center.
• SpaceX is seeking approval to launch and operate up to one million satellites designed to function as orbital data centers.
• These satellites would provide massive computing power to support advanced artificial intelligence and data processing.
• The system would rely on near constant solar energy in space, reducing operating costs and environmental impact compared to Earth based data centers.
• Satellites would operate between 500 km and 2,000 km in altitude, across multiple orbital shells, to handle global demand.
• High speed laser links would connect the satellites with each other and with the Starlink network, enabling petabit level data transfer.
• Data would ultimately be routed to authorized ground stations around the world.
• SpaceX says demand from AI, machine learning, and edge computing is growing faster than terrestrial infrastructure can handle.
The company frames this as a major step toward a future where humanity becomes a multi planetary civilization powered by space based infrastructure.
(Excerpt) Read more at x.com ...
It might be better then putting them on farmland, sucking up the local water supply and screwing up our electric bills.
Yep. That’s where the EU is screwing itself out of a position in the AI race. They believe they can create a healthy environment for AI development by regulating it out of existence.
Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
Same things that “went wrong” with Falcon 9 and the Dragon space craft to the Space Station, which have been working flawlessly.
Solves the cooling issue.
Sky Net. Get to the choppa
They’ll clean it up..
?????
Not really. Very hard to cool in a vacuum. No convection.
The way Starship is going, they could replace the whole constellation in a week.
Time to re-read Neuromancer...
This is beyond dumb. Put your data centers underground where they’re protected.
Do we really need all this AI crap?
We may as well build a Dyson Sphere around Earth and be done with it. As an amateur astronomer, I’m not crazy about the idea. And what about our space exploration- are we going to have to dodge Starlink On Steroids to get to the Moon and beyond?
You don’t ave to dodge anything, given you are not building any space ships.
Low-Earth orbit is just 2.8 days from disaster
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/01/260128075341.htm
A Princeton researcher and her colleagues created a model of what would happen if Earth was struck by a magnetic storm equal to The Great Carrington event in 1859.
Currently, dozens of LEO satellites must make course corrections every day to avoid space junk and other satellites.
A massive magnetic storm would instantly disrupt course corrections.
Over a period of 2.8 days, the number of collisions would increase to a chaotic level that would eventually kill or disrupt every active satellite in orbit.
1. What is the projected cost, versus terrestrial data centers in the future. The main reason we hear about putting AI in space is the load on the power grid. Take into account on earth we can build point-of-load power sources, be they nuclear or solar that would not cause greenhouse effects. IIRC, the incident solar radiation in space is only a little more than 2x what it is on the ground. Does that factor justify putting data centers in orbit?
2. The orbital altitude stated, I believe puts at least some of the satellites in the Van Allen belt, meaning more shielding would be required, presumably adding weight to the payload.
3. If the satellites are not in a near-polar orbit, a fraction of them will be eclipsed by the earth and lose power. To remain on-line some means of energy storage would be needed.
4. Why would so many satellites be needed? Why not scale up to larger satellites/solar arrays and fewer launches.
5. Does latency in data exchange over distance, either between satellites in space, or between space and ground introduce a degraded performance?
Not being negative here, considering Musk has an amazing track record of getting ideas into fruition. There are always technical problems facing anything of this magnitude, but Engineers are quite adept at finding solutions that work.
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