#02
Will AI compute / data centers move to space?
Interviews
12
Answers
13
X posts
4
Span
2023 to 2026
First asked Oct 5, 2023, most recently Oct 10, 2026. Excerpts below are from machine transcripts with filler words (um, uh, you know) and stutters removed; … marks a cut. They are not checked word for word, so use the link to hear the exact words, or the transcript link for the raw text. Timestamps: 5 cross-checked against YouTube captions, 8 from the archive transcript only. X has no link-to-time option, so X links open at the start.
How the answer evolved · oldest first
Oct 5, 2023 · International Astronautical Congress · asked by Interviewer
Q: If you wanted to put a starship with a capability, a laboratory, how long could that, could it stay in orbit and still come down?
Oh, there's no real limit. You could stay in orbit for a very long time. The volume of the Sasha bearing is roughly comparable to the volume of the International Space Station. So there's about a thousand cubic meters of volume in the bearing. I think space station is a comparable
May 6, 2024 · Milken Institute Global Conference · asked by Michael Milken
Q: How do you see it being helping you and what you're trying to achieve?
I mean oddly enough one of the areas where there's almost no AI used is space exploration. So SpaceX uses basically no AI. Starlink uses, does not use AI. I'm not against using it. It just, we haven't seen a use for it. I mean with any given variant of or improvement in AI, the, I mean there's generally like, I'll ask it questions about the Fermi paradox, about rocket engine design, about electrochemistry, and so …
May 20, 2025 · Qatar Economic Forum · asked by Qatar Forum Interviewer
Q: Do you see Space X moving into weaponized drones?
You certainly ask interesting questions that are impossible to answer. So SpaceX is, it's the space launch leader. So SpaceX doesn't do drones. SpaceX builds rockets, satellites and Internet terminals. So SpaceX has a pretty dominant position in space launch. So I've of the mass launch to orbit this year, SpaceX will probably do 90%. China will do the remain half of the remaining amount. So 5%. And the rest of the …
Nov 19, 2025 · US-Saudi Investment Forum · asked by Moderator
Q: AI in space. Is that possible?
Yes. If. If civilization continues, which it probably will, then AI in space is inevitable. I always have to, like, preface that. We shouldn't take civilization for granted. We need to make sure to take care to ensure that civilization has an upward arc. I mean, any student of history knows that civilization does not always have an upward arc. And in fact civilizations have life cycles. So hopefully we are in a …
Jan 6, 2026 · Moonshots · asked by Co-host
Q: Isn't it amazing how divergent the Memphis version of that is from the space based version?
Yeah. Once we get solar domestically at scale, and if we're launching starship at scale, then by far the cheapest way to do AI compute will be in space. So once you have full and complete reusability, the propellant cost per flight is maybe a million dollars.
Jan 22, 2026 · Davos · asked by Larry Fink
Q: Is there any capacity in doing that and then taking that power and bringing it back to Earth? Is there any way of doing that?
I think the case, it's a no brainer for building AI, solar powered AI data centers in space because as you mentioned, it's also very cold in space. If you're in the shadow, it's very cold in space, just 3 degrees Kelvin. So you just have your solar panels facing the sun and then a radiator that's like point like pointed away from the sun so it has no sun incidents. And then it's, and then it's just cooling. It's a …
Feb 5, 2026 · Dwarkesh Podcast · asked by Dwarkesh Patel
Q: What's the reason to put them in space?
Well, the availability of energy is the issue. So, I mean, if you look at electrical output outside of China, but everywhere outside of China, it's more or less flat. It's very maybe a slight increase, but pretty close flat. China has a rapid increase in electrical output. But if you're putting data centers anywhere except China, where are you going to get your electricity? Especially as you scale, the output of …
Feb 5, 2026 · Dwarkesh Podcast · asked by Dwarkesh Patel
Q: how do you design this chip for space? What changes?
Well, I guess you want to have designed it to be more radiation tolerant and run at a higher temperature. So roughly if you increase the operating temperature by 20% in degrees Kelvin, you can cut your radiator mass in half. So running at a higher temperature is helpful in space there's various things you can do for shielding the memory, but neural nets are going to be very resilient to bit flips. So most of what …
Jun 8, 2026 · SpaceX Technical Talk: AI Satellites at Scale · asked by Ian Dahl (Starlink)
Q: We like to look at this and say like what is, what is the actual engineering problem here?
Yeah. Now the AI satellite is actually much simpler than a Starlink satellite. A Starlink satellite has gigantic phased array antennas. It's got parabolic antennas, it's got a lot of laser links. It's a, it's much more complicated than an AI satellite. And a satellite is essentially a lot of solar cells, radiator, and you still need some laser links, but you don't have all of the super complex antennas that you have …
Jul 8, 2026 · The Sean Hannity Show: Interviewed by Gov. Greg Abbott · asked by Greg Abbott
Q: Is that something that's going to be a reality and if so, when?
Yeah, I think the way to expand compute is really in space. There's a lot of room in space and if you look at the size of Earth relative to the sun or relative to the solar system, you realize just how tiny Earth is. We're very tiny. We only receive about half a billionth of the sun's energy. So you can really think about this being like a tiny dust mote in a vast darkness. So the way to expand compute without using …
Jul 23, 2026 · The Economist: Interview with Elon Musk · asked by Zanny Minton Beddoes
Q: What is, what will your companies be doing in 10 years and how will they make money?
Well, you can really think of the economy as Digital and physical intelligence. So what we have right now advancing very rapidly is digital intelligence. Obviously with AI, that is, it seems that almost with every passing week there are more AI breakthroughs. It can do something amazing that it couldn't do before. But it's still somewhat confined to the digital realm. It doesn't have end effectors. You need the end …
Sep 25, 2026 · Interview with CCTV · asked by CMG interviewer
Q: What kind of areas or avenues do you think possible avenue do you think between communications or corporations can get between us and China?
Well, I mean in space, I think the most important thing to achieve cooperation with is to make sure that when satellites are launched from the US or China, that we closely coordinate what orbits the satellites are going to avoid a Potential collision. I think that's the most important area of cooperation. And then in general I would say the important thing for space launch, the fundamental breakthrough that's needed …
Oct 10, 2026 · X Takeover 2026 · asked by Co-host (Tesla Owners Silicon Valley)
Q: And how did you come to see rockets and SI belonging under one roof?
Well, because I'm very farsighted, of course. Well, I guess if you say, like, as you expand into space you're able to harness a lot more of the sun's power in space than you can on Earth. So it's important to appreciate the sheer magnitude of the sun and how the sun is pretty much everything. So the sun is 99.86% of all the mass in the solar system. And then you've got Jupiter as like, most of the remaining mass. …
In his own posts on X
@elonmusk · May 20, 2026
As the recently expanded partnership with @AnthropicAI demonstrates, @SpaceX is offering AI compute as a service at significant scale. We are in discussions with other companies to do the same. Over time, especially with orbital data centers, we expect to serve AI at extremely high scale.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Aug 4, 2026
The same Starmind V1 satellite design (minus solar & radiator) will be deployed on the ground in our data centers. It’s a major improvement in data center efficiency.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Sep 20, 2026
@XFreeze Connectivity per sat will be more like 10Tb in both directions and there is a path to 100+Tb. Each sat is 250kW and will have a SpaceX-designed Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 computer.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Oct 1, 2026
Each @SpaceX Star Mind super intelligence spacecraft will have over 250kW of solar power, which is about 20% more than the International Space Station
View on X ↗
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