According to the latest filing by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Elon Musk's SpaceX is reportedly conceptualizing an astonishing plan: deploying a super-giant constellation of 1 million satellites. These satellites will not only orbit the Earth but also have a core mission of using the near-limitless solar energy in space to power artificial intelligence data centers.

This highly sci-fi proposal comes shortly after SpaceX and Musk's AI company xAI discussed a potential merger. In the competition with giants like Google and OpenAI, access to computing power and electricity has become a critical bottleneck, and sending data centers into orbit is seen as a key path to achieve breakthroughs in cost and energy efficiency.

Space-Based Computing Factories: Breaking Free from Environmental and Energy Constraints

SpaceX emphasized in its application documents that orbital data centers have advantages that ground facilities cannot match:

  • Energy Efficiency Breakthrough: Satellites can directly utilize almost continuous solar energy, without facing the supply pressure of ground power grids.

  • Low Environmental Impact: Compared to ground data centers that consume massive amounts of electricity and produce thermal pollution, orbital facilities have extremely low operational and maintenance costs, and their impact on the Earth's environment is significantly reduced.

  • Unprecedented Scale: By leveraging fully reusable rockets such as Starship, SpaceX plans to send hundreds of thousands of tons of payload into orbit each year, rapidly building large-scale computing infrastructure.

From Concept to Reality: Dual Challenges of Technology and Regulation

Although the application involves as many as 1 million satellites, industry experts generally believe this is more about gaining flexibility at the design level. Currently, there are only about 15,000 satellites in orbit, and SpaceX's previously applied for 42,000 Starlink satellites have only been deployed around 9,500.

The realization of this grand vision heavily depends on the regular launch capability of the Starship rocket. Musk expects that this next-generation heavy rocket will achieve its first payload orbit this year. Additionally, the plan still needs final approval from the U.S. telecommunications regulatory authorities.

If this plan is implemented, Musk would not only dominate near-Earth orbit communications but also possess a vast AI smart computing center deployed in space, free from traditional power constraints. This would undoubtedly bring significant changes to the global artificial intelligence competition landscape.