It is now official. SpaceX has acquired xAI, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg, marking some big news on Monday afternoon.
The announcement was posted on the SpaceX website on February 2, with Elon Musk outlining a somewhat crazy and ambitious plan to move large-scale AI computing into space.
According to Musk, today’s AI systems rely on massive data centres on Earth that consume huge amounts of electricity and water for cooling. He argues this model cannot scale without causing environmental and community strain.
“In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale,” Musk wrote. He added that “to harness even a millionth of our Sun’s energy would require over a million times more energy than our civilization currently uses.”
Musk said the idea is to place data centres in orbit, powered by near-constant solar energy. “The only logical solution therefore is to transport these resource-intensive efforts to a location with vast power and space,” he wrote, adding, “I mean, space is called ‘space’ for a reason. 😂”
Under the plan, SpaceX would eventually launch huge numbers of AI-focused satellites that act as orbital data centres. Musk said Starship will be key to making this possible, starting this year with launches of more powerful V3 Starlink satellites and next-generation direct-to-mobile satellites that aim to deliver full cellular coverage worldwide (Rogers is the partner in Canada).
He described an aggressive launch vision, writing that “with launches every hour carrying 200 tons per flight, Starship will deliver millions of tons to orbit and beyond per year.”
Musk also claimed the economics could shift quickly. “My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space,” he wrote, saying this would allow companies to train AI models and process data at unprecedented scale.
Looking further ahead, Musk said Starship could enable permanent operations on the Moon, including factories that build and deploy satellites using lunar resources. He argued this could eventually lead to massive amounts of AI infrastructure in deep space and support long-term goals like a sustained human presence on the Moon and a civilization on Mars.
“The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centres a reality will fund and enable self-growing bases on the Moon, an entire civilization on Mars and ultimately expansion to the Universe,” Musk wrote.
He closed the announcement by saying, “Ad Astra!” (Latin phrase that means ‘to the stars’).
To have a million AI data centres in space sounds like a page out of a science-fiction novel. It’ll be interesting if SpaceX pulls this off as it would give the company a huge advantage in leveraging the sun for free AI computing.
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This is crazy. I bet Tesla is next to join the fold?