OPINION: Data centers in space may sound wild, but SpaceX and others believe otherwise

Data centers in space have for many years been closer to science fiction than fact and while they still remain concepts for the future, the ingredients for making them real are more apparent.

At least that is how SpaceX sees the world, according to the S-1 prospectus statement posted Wednesday ahead of its initial public offering.

SpaceX breaks out the data center landscape into two primary categories, the first being terrestrial data centers that can also be described as the traditional variety.

Terrestrial data centers house computing infrastructure and servers that rely heavily on conventional energy sources and cooling systems to support cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

Orbital data centers both rely on the sun to generate electric power and rely on the extreme cold temperatures inherent in space for cooling. The idea behind this category of data centers is to create an alternative to finding more land on Earth for these sprawling sites, which communities are pushing back against on environmental grounds and other concerns.

Given what they do, data centers absolutely fall into the category of "dual-use" technology that is made for government and commercial/consumer users.

According to SpaceX’s S-1, its orbital AI compute satellites can start deploying as early as 2028 and be able to handle energy-intensive AI workloads. SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation would provide the connectivity between orbital AI systems to users around the world.

On the other hand, Blue Origin’s founder Jeff Bezos is less optimistic about the kind of aggressive timeline SpaceX has in mind. Bezos told CNBC on Wednesday that energy, computer chip and launch costs all need to come down in order to make data centers in space real.

In its S-1, SpaceX does acknowledge those cost barriers as a significant headwind for both terrestrial and orbital data centers. The company also does “not believe that moving compute to space in and of itself will have a meaningful impact” on processor costs.

But SpaceX is also seemingly leaning into the economic concept Moore’s Law teaches about what drives innovation and business models. SpaceX believes it can bring compute hardware costs down over time by combining third-party chip sourcing with internal manufacturing processes.

SpaceX is also factoring in energy, cooling and distribution requirements of the data centers once they are in space.

“In orbit, chips are expected to be powered by solar energy which is low cost and unlimited, and we expect to leverage radiative cooling architectures, which incur no operating costs compared to liquid or air cooling,” SpaceX’s S-1 says. “Our integrated, space-based Starlink network architecture also enables more cost efficient routing of data between compute clusters and to end users on a global basis.”

All of that is to say, count Bezos and SpaceX’s leader Elon Musk as among those who believe orbital data centers will be a reality even if they are in disagreement over when that happens.

Closer to home for WT: how will data centers in space work and what does it mean for a U.S. government customer collective that will want to lean into this kind of tech capability?

During an April episode of our podcast, I asked Arcfield’s CEO Kevin Kelly the simple question of whether data centers in space are fact or fiction to see where he would take the answer.

Kelly told me they are fact and said the concept is getting much more sophisticated than simply trying to make the most out of limited computing resources on spacecraft.

But the future Golden Dome missile defense system is one of several initiatives changing the conversation around that because of how sophisticated the requirements are.

“The challenge here is to identify, track, and potentially even intercept a drone, a ballistic missile, or a hypersonic missile,” Kelly said of Golden Dome. “(You) just don't have the time to do all the ground-based processing, so it's going to place the demand for data centers in space. That's a very real demand, and there's a lot of thinking and a lot of money going towards solving that problem.”

Kelly also suggested we all look at the idea of data centers in space through a different lens than what we see here on Earth, and in some instances live not very far from.

“We won't necessarily see the same kind of data centers up in orbit that we do on the ground and are popping up seemingly everywhere in communities. I don't think we're going to get them out of our neighborhoods. The ones you'll see in space will be distributed, much smaller,” Kelly said.

“On Earth we can keep adding power, keep adding cooling until we solve the power consumption and thermal dissipation problems. We don't have that luxury in space, the power is going to come from batteries and solar collectors and the ability to dissipate heat from those heavy-duty processors is limited to, the shady side of the satellite or when the satellite's flying through the dark,” Kelly added.

I suppose that if all goes according to Musk’s vision for orbital data centers, and also his space industry colleagues in Bezos and Kelly, the term “dual-use” may be downplaying it.