The Orbital Data Center Hype Machine Is Already in Orbit
"The lowest-cost place to put AI will be in space, and that will be true within two years, maybe three at the latest," SpaceX founder Elon Musk told the World Economic Forum in Davos this past January, as his company was preparing to go public. Later that month, SpaceX filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission for an orbital data center constellation of up to 1 million satellites in low Earth orbit, 500 to 2,000 kilometers above Earth.
Key Takeaways
- And just three days before the IPO, he discussed some initial design specifications for a new AI-1 satellite data center in a video interview.
- Consider this: There are roughly 14,500 active satellites in orbit .
Musk's Starlink constellation accounts for about two thirds of those .
- Short of a manufacturing revolution, try 25 years.
The reality is that the vision of massive constellations of orbital data centers is nowhere close to being realized.
- A 40-kilowatt rack of servers will need an 80-m² radiator; a 100-megawatt data center will require 2,500 of those radiators.
Some astronomers are understandably concerned that a million satellites with giant radiative wings would blot out the stars.
- The Starlink laser-link network already exists as the communication backbone for any SpaceX compute constellation, and that infrastructure is what no new entrant can replicate quickly.
Stats & Key Facts
- #Later that month, SpaceX filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission for an orbital data center constellation of up to 1 million satellites in low Earth orbit, 500 to 2,000 kilometers above Earth.
- #Later that month, SpaceX filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission for an orbital data center constellation of up to 1 million satellites in low Earth orbit, 500 to 2,000 kilometers above Earth.
- #To loft 1 million satellites into low Earth orbit on SpaceX's Starship, which is designed to carry up to 60 satellites per vehicle, would require 16,666 launches exclusively devoted to satellite deployments.
- #And how long would it take to build 1 million satellites, given Starlink's current pace of around 4,000 per year and a generous tenfold increase in capacity?
" The lowest-cost place to put AI will be in space, and that will be true within two years, maybe three at the latest," SpaceX founder Elon Musk told the World Economic Forum in Davos this past January, as his company was preparing to go public . Later that month, SpaceX filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission for an orbital data center constellation of up to 1 million satellites in low Earth orbit, 500 to 2,000 kilometers above Earth. And just three days before the IPO, he discussed some initial design specifications for a new AI-1 satellite data center in a video interview.
Musk is prone to hyperbole when it comes to timelines. Full self-driving cars by 2017 . First human mission to Mars in 2024 .
Ten thousand Optimus humanoid robots by the end of 2025 . For orbital data centers, which he says will be a cost-effective alternative to terrestrial data centers within three years, the math won't make sense for several years, if ever. Consider this: There are roughly 14,500 active satellites in orbit .
For more details please read the original article at IEEE Spectrum AI.
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