NEW YORK, August 26. /TASS/. SpaceX, the company founded by US entrepreneur Elon Musk, has convinced investors that launching up to 1 million microprocessor-equipped satellites into low Earth orbit to build a network of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers could generate trillions of dollars in future revenue, the Financial Times (FT) reported.
SpaceX aims to dominate a key segment of the AI economy by creating a new market for orbital data centers, according to the newspaper. The company plans to begin launching the satellites as early as next year after making its stock market debut in June.
The 122-meter Starship rocket is at the heart of the plan. Musk told investors in August that the project was not something in the distant future. However, company documents, technical materials and interviews with aerospace engineers indicate that SpaceX faces major challenges in implementing the program, the FT reported.
The company’s own IPO filing highlights the risks involved, according to the FT. SpaceX must solve three major interconnected problems to achieve its goal on an industry-wide scale: sharply reduce launch costs while achieving an unprecedented launch frequency, cool power-hungry computers in a vacuum, and regularly upgrade them with the latest chip technology.
A senior aerospace engineer at the University of California, Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, Christopher Smith, said the logistical challenges of such an undertaking are simply enormous. Smith estimates that maintaining the 1-million-satellite Starmind constellation would require SpaceX to launch more than nine Starships a day, with each rocket carrying 60 satellites and chip upgrades required every five years.
A space systems architect and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, George Lordos, estimates that the initial constellation of AI satellites will be deployed by 2028. SpaceX must also make the project economically viable compared with ground-based data centers even after overcoming complex engineering challenges. The expert said the plan’s success depends on its economic viability.