TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY
The underlying philosophy driving this huge scale was detailed when Elon revealed his TeraFab plans to deploy AI chips in space with the goal of producing more than one terawatt of compute per year.
Elon’ s goal is to create a“ galactic civilisation” by harnessing all the energy on a planet, from a star and, eventually, in a galaxy. He argues that in space, chips can rely on solar power, reducing battery power needs and receiving at least five times the solar energy without atmospheric attenuation, day / night cycles or seasonality.
Elon highlights that while“ increasing power on earth has become harder and more expensive over time”, scaling compute power in space proves both easier and cheaper.
Validating this trend, startup Starcloud has also proposed a constellation of up to 88,000 satellites. The firm secured US $ 170m as part of a US $ 1.1bn valuation, fuelling its plans. The fundraise was led by venture capital firm Benchmark and EQT Ventures, a private equity firm with more than US $ 100bn in assets under management. To execute its vision, Starcloud plans to scale up production of its largest, most powerful satellite yet, the three-ton, 200 kW Starcloud-3.
The company is developing new facilities to build these spacecraft in-house, focusing on a simple, costeffective design for high-volume manufacturing, a strategy driven by the need for a brutal cost equation.
“Breakneck demand growth from data centres and AI is helping drive up electricity use in advanced economies”
Faith Birol Executive Director IEA
CEO Philip Johnston describes the Starcloud-3 as a stripped-down satellite for LEO, primarily composed of solar panels, chips and optical terminals. The design allows it to be manufactured efficiently and relies on linking with third-party broadband networks for data.
How power and people are constraining AI The move to launch data centres into orbit is fundamentally driven by two primary constraints on Earth: the overwhelming demand for energy and a critical shortage of skilled labour. First, the sheer energy appetite of AI infrastructure is straining resources. Data centres are projected to account for almost half of the growth in global electricity demand between now and
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