Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk are pursuing space data centres. Yet, Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman sees the idea as impractical for another decade or two. He has questioned the economics of putting computing infrastructure into orbit, even as Pichai’s Google and Musk’s SpaceX pursue plans to run artificial intelligence hardware beyond Earth.“I think that it is highly unlikely to be economically feasible or practical in the next decade or two,” Garman said during the Sources podcast with Alex Heath. His concerns include expensive launches, the weight of computing equipment, cooling and the difficulty of maintaining servers in space. The remarks highlight a disagreement over how quickly access to solar energy in orbit could translate into commercially viable infrastructure for AI.
Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk, Amazon’s computing head Matt Garman does not agree with the data centre idea you call ‘future’; he sees it as impractical as …
