Amazon There are more than 900 data centers Spread to the entire planet. if you ask Matt Garman, CEO, Amazon Web Serviceswhich is where they will stay for the foreseeable future.
Speaking at a technology conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Garman poured cold water on the concept of space-based data centers, which Elon Musk and others have touted as the future of artificial intelligence.
Garman said that while there are clear benefits to placing AI data centers in space, including the ability to directly harness the sun’s energy and the ability to cool heat-generating equipment in the cold space atmosphere, there are also some significant obstacles to placing data centers in space or on other planets. Chief among these is the cost of transportation equipment.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen server racks lately: they’re heavy,” Garman said in an interview at the Cisco Artificial Intelligence Summit in response to a question about the feasibility of space-based data centers. “Last I checked, humans haven’t built permanent structures in space yet. So… maybe.”
The comment appeared a day later Musk announced the merger of his rocket company SpaceX and his artificial intelligence company xAI, The deal reportedly values the combined company at a staggering $1.25 billion.
“The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a reality will fund and support self-development bases on the moon, entire civilizations on Mars, and ultimately expand into the universe,” Musk wrote in a note. Monday’s blog post Announcing the deal.
modern Data centers powering artificial intelligence servicesincluding chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and xAI’s Grok, are massive behemoths that can span millions of square feet and are crammed with so much hardware that they must be built on reinforced concrete slabs.
Musk’s space exploration technologies corp. With a successful track record of launching thousands of internet-carrying Starlink satellites into orbit with Falcon rockets, Musk has laid out ambitious plans to launch as many as 1 million satellites The number that has entered space is far greater than the total number of objects launched into space in history. Musk wrote on Monday that a Starlink launch blizzard would lead to improvements to SpaceX rockets that would make space-based data centers a reality, but he did not provide a timeline for when he expected that to happen.
Amazon plans to create a constellation of internet transmission satellites called Leo to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink. The company has set aside $10 billion for the project, According to CNBCBut progress is slow, and Amazon recently asked the U.S. FCC to extend the timetable for launching 1,600 Leo satellites.
In his speech on Tuesday, Garman cited Musk’s plan for 1 million satellites and acknowledged that fuel and other improvements would make space transportation cheaper. But he stressed that cost is currently the main bottleneck.
This story was originally published on wealth network