So, yeah. Well, what I love about SpaceX is it's not a software company. Like, they're building real infrastructure that actually matters and could change the way we live in a variety of ways. Like, they've already changed national security in some very positive ways, delivering internet in new ways, building out data centers faster than anyone on Earth, at least in this country. Maybe going to Mars, I don't know. I don't know if we'll get to Mars, but I support the ambitions in the physical world. I think that's pretty cool. So, we'll see what it turns into. Speaking of the physical world though, Justin says, 'Before we go to space for data centers, aren't there uglier but more plausible terrestrial or near terrestrial escape hatches? For example, modular data centers attached to offshore oil platforms or other stranded energy sites powered by gas that might otherwise be flared with existing industrial maintenance infrastructure, fiber / backhaul, and the ocean as a heat sink?' A lot going on there. Obviously, marine environments are brutal and maintenance would still be a nightmare, but that seems dramatically more tractable than launching disposable rack satellites and accepting orbital hardware depreciation. My question is, if the core stick is terrestrial power and zoning opposition, why shouldn't we expect the industry to exhaust every conceivable alternative before orbital data centers pencil out? I'm very pro space industry and I love billionaires to subsidize orbital industrial capability. I'm just struggling to see why Earth-side ugly solutions don't dominate space compute economically for a long time. What do you think, Ben?
So, this is totally valid pushback. So, in fact, a lot of the pushback we're going to go through is valid. And there is a bit where for SpaceX specifically, there is a you have a hammer, what's the biggest nail I can find, right? So, there was on TechCrunch or today or there's an article from The Information about Apple is going to tout how their own chips gives them an advantage in AI. Like, did Apple develop their chips to give them an advantage in AI, or are they casting about and retrofitting their advantages to tell a story about how they have an advantage in AI? No, that's also definitely true, and it also might be true that they do have an advantage in AI because of their chips. Like, all these things can be true at the same time. This definitely applies to SpaceX. SpaceX was not created to put data centers in space, right? And like, so there is a certain retrofitting of mission, and there's a bit where AI is arguably rescuing the SpaceX economic case by virtue of delivering this theoretical market that is so large that they didn't plan for, but it happened to come along at the right time. And so, all these arguments about trillion dollar opportunity right there makes the argument for data centers in space because they're a space company, right? [laughter] Like, so totally valid response. Now, in the pushback to Justin, and the reason why I am fairly optimistic about data centers in space is a few. Like, you already said there's a lot going on here. Now, number one, I absolutely think there will be things like this about maximizing everywhere we can find energy. And by the way, in the meantime, there's still a lot of places to build data centers, particularly in places like West Texas. To his point, this bit about they actually have more natural gas than they know what to do with because it's a byproduct of extracting oil, and yet they literally just set it on fire, right? Because they can't get rid of it. So, it's actually a net positive. It is carbon positive to the earth to build a data center instead of flaring it up. A lot of existing data centers have been retrofitted for AI or Bitcoin for the same idea because look, we can just monetize what actually is excess energy and then everyone was like, oh wait, I know what's better than Bitcoin, AI. Let's make tokens. They're like tear it all out, put more stuff in there. There's this whole ecosystem of like wildcatters that would just find oil wells and stuff. Like that's going on with AI and finding places to put GPUs. So, absolutely a thing. And so yeah, data centers on oil platforms, sure. Why not? You do need there's lots of stuff that goes into that. You have to convert that natural gas into power. You need turbines. Guess how long it takes to buy a turbine right now.
Yep, turbine blade technology. And so but so there's a bit of big push on like way much less efficient turbines or like temporary ones or generators or like there's like the Bloom Energy that's doing like fuel cells. Like, so there's which is not nearly as efficient as a proper generator, but you can't get a proper generator and there's like demand right now. So now all these things can and I think will be solved over time. So it's not dispositive that this means like it's not like we're fundamentally constrained in how many turbines we have. We can make more and which is like what would it be easier to make more turbines than to have data centers in space? That I will let me just write Justin's next email for him. [laughter] Yes, that might be the case. So the thing about data centers in space is there are some fundamental advantages. And the fundamental advantage is pretty straightforward, which is free power. Like and so you do get power and it's actually relatively simple all things considered. It's not capturing gas then, you know, setting it on fire and spinning and boiling water and spinning blade. If you think about it, the actual power generation is kind of nuts how it works. There's a bit where it's just like it's very simple. And this gets back to the bit we talked about last time. We're not talking about putting a warehouse in space. It's putting a bit of compute that's about the size of what Starlink satellites are today. Now you need more cooling. Just to put it in context, I think the International Space Station is like 70 kilowatts and that was very difficult to figure out how they deploy the radiation to cool that. You're going to have to figure that out if you're going for let's say 100 kilowatts. Positioning it so that one side's always in shade, one side's always in sunlight will solve some of these issues. But the long and short of it is that like there's an elegance and simplicity to this that I think is underappreciated. If all these issues can be solved.
