SpaceX, the aerospace company of Elon Musk, is moving in earnest to build a large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) data center in space.
According to Bloomberg News on the 1st, SpaceX on the night of the 30th (local time) submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asking for permission to launch up to 1 million satellites, saying it would build a space data center in Earth orbit.
SpaceX said it is building a solar-powered network "to accommodate the surge in data demand due to AI."
According to SpaceX, the space AI data centers will be powered by solar energy and will dissipate heat via radiative cooling that occurs naturally in space, rather than water-cooled systems that require large amounts of water like terrestrial data centers. The company says this could be a greener and lower-expense alternative to ground-based data centers.
The satellites, launched aboard SpaceX's reusable rocket Starship, will be positioned at altitudes of 500–2,000 km and are expected to communicate with each other via laser links.
Musk recently emphasized the need for space data centers at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
At the forum, Musk said, "Building AI data centers in space is such an obvious choice," adding, "The lowest-expense place to put AI will be space, and this will be realized in 2 years, 3 years at most."
The FCC filing came as SpaceX, which is considering an initial public offering (IPO) this year, is reviewing a merger with xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence corporations.
Bloomberg said the idea is to integrate the two companies' cash flows while combining AI, satellite manufacturing and rocket launch capabilities.