Musk says photo voltaic powered and space-based knowledge centres are the one option to meet AI’s burgeoning power calls for.
Printed On 3 Feb 2026
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has acquired his AI firm xAI as a part of an bold scheme to construct space-based knowledge centres to energy the way forward for synthetic intelligence.
The billionaire, who can be the CEO of Tesla, introduced the merger in a press release on Tuesday on the SpaceX web site.
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Musk mentioned the merger will assist to handle the rising query of find out how to meet the power-hungry calls for of synthetic intelligence.
AI demand would require “immense quantities of energy and cooling” that aren’t sustainable on Earth with out “imposing hardship on communities and the atmosphere,” he mentioned.
House-based knowledge centres that harness the ability of the Solar are the one long-term resolution, in line with Musk.
“In the long run, space-based AI is clearly the one option to scale. To harness even a millionth of our Solar’s power would require over one million instances extra power than our civilisation at the moment makes use of!” he wrote.
“The one logical resolution due to this fact is to move these resource-intensive efforts to a location with huge energy and area,” he continued, predicting that throughout the subsequent “2 to three years, the bottom price option to generate AI compute can be in area”.
The merger of SpaceX and xAI will convey a number of of Musk’s area, synthetic intelligence, web, and social media tasks underneath one roof.
SpaceX operates the Falcon and Starship rocket programmes, whereas xAI is greatest identified for creating the AI-powered Grok chatbot. Final yr, xAI additionally acquired X, the social media platform generally known as Twitter, till it was purchased by Musk in late 2022.
Each firms have main contracts with US authorities companies reminiscent of NASA and the Division of Protection .
SpaceX’s Starshield unit particularly collaborates with authorities entities, together with navy and intelligence companies.
Musk just isn’t the one tech CEO trying to area as an answer to AI’s power quandary.
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Google’s Mission Suncatcher are each engaged on solar-powered space-based knowledge centres.
“Within the historical past of spaceflight, there has by no means been a automobile able to launching the megatons of mass that space-based knowledge centres or everlasting bases on the Moon and cities on Mars require,” Musk wrote.
Musk additionally mentioned his long-term plan for SpaceX is to launch one million satellites.
To realize this goal, SpaceX’s Starship rocket programme goals to sooner or later launch one flight per hour with a 200-tonne payload, he mentioned.
Musk mentioned Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX that provides satellite-based web service, will quickly get a serious increase with the launch of SpaceX’s subsequent technology of V3 satellites.
They’ll every add “greater than 20 instances the capability to the constellation as the present Falcon launches of the V2 Starlink satellites”, he wrote.
