AI In Space: Google and SpaceX's Wild Plan To Fix Our Energy Crisis

Ejaaz: Everyone thinks that the most valuable resource in AI is the GPU. Ejaaz: It's why NVIDIA is worth $5 trillion, right? But what if I told you you're wrong? Ejaaz: What if I told you that the most valuable resource in AI is actually energy? Ejaaz: Without energy, you can't power these things. Without energy, Ejaaz: the GPU is just a worthless piece of metal junk.

Ejaaz: And in fact, a lot of AI labs are facing this challenge where they just don't Ejaaz: have enough energy to power the tens of billions of dollars of GPUs that they've spent so far. Ejaaz: In fact, Satya Nadella of Microsoft recently said that he has hundreds of millions Ejaaz: of dollars worth of NVIDIA GPUs in his data centers collecting dust. Ejaaz: Now, there are a bunch of efforts focused on solving this energy crisis.

Ejaaz: You've got nuclear energy, you've got renewable energy, but one particular solution Ejaaz: that's taking up a lot of mind space with Elon Musk and Google is literally out of this world. Ejaaz: I've got six words for you. AI Ejaaz: data centers in outer space. That is a real sentence that I've just said. Ejaaz: It's the concept of putting GPUs in outer space to harness the energy of the Ejaaz: sun for AI training and for AI inference.

Ejaaz: And whilst it might sound like a far-fetched idea, it's not when you consider Ejaaz: that the resources needed on Earth to power up the data centers, Ejaaz: which by the way, are requiring as much energy as a mid to large city in the US. Ejaaz: You might need to look at alternative resources for this, the one being the Ejaaz: sun. And the economics kind of work out in theory.

Ejaaz: You have up to three to five times more energy efficiency if you operate GPUs Ejaaz: above the Earth's atmosphere than below it.

Ejaaz: So in this episode, we're going to dig into all things AI space data centers. Ejaaz: Is this real? Is this achievable? Ejaaz: Or is this kind of like a myth that we're going to laugh about and have pie Ejaaz: on our face six months from now? Ejaaz: Josh, you and I have a tumultuous relationship around this topic. Ejaaz: 50% of us were optimistic. 50% of us, you, were pessimistic about this. Ejaaz: What's your take on all of this?

Josh: I was the biggest hater in the world. Space was so stupid. Why are we sending Josh: stuff to space when we have it all here on Earth? Josh: Well, my mind has changed. I have flipped 180 degrees. I'm pro space. Josh: I'm ready to send these things to space tomorrow. I want all the data centers Josh: in outer space immediately. Josh: And when I was considering why, I did a lot of research, which we're going to Josh: get into in this episode.

Josh: But there's this combination of things where there is a power grid straining on the U.S. Josh: Where data centers now are one of the main drivers rising electricity demand. Josh: We can't fulfill all the electricity demand. Josh: There are limits on land, water, permitting, cooling. Josh: And I was thinking, I was like, well, if your house is full of all these gaming Josh: PCs and the power keeps going out, well, you start to ask yourself,

Josh: well, where else can we put them? And you're like, on the roof? No. Josh: Well, why don't we just send them off into outer space? And thankfully, Josh: because of new technologies like SpaceX Starship, we can do this. Josh: So there are some benefits to space that I want to go over very quickly before Josh: we get into who's talking about this and who's doing this. One of them being...

Josh: The most important one, unlimited solar energy. A lot of people don't know this, Josh: but 99.98% of the entire solar system is the sun. Josh: All of the mass of the solar system, it exists in the sun. Josh: And the sun is just this huge fusion reactor. And in fact, if you can get access Josh: to the sun from outside of our atmosphere, if you leave Earth's atmosphere and Josh: you go into just normal space, it's actually eight times more powerful than on Earth.

Josh: So if you remove the constraint of Earth's atmosphere, immediately the Josh: solar panels get access to eight times more energy than they would Josh: have in the case of the around space space is also Josh: a vacuum which means you can radiate heat directly into this Josh: empty space where there's nothing to worry about there's no Josh: land there's security and sovereignty because let me tell you it's a lot harder

Josh: to hack a data center in outer space than it is to do so here on earth so there's Josh: a lot of perks we're going to go through but i want to hand it back to you to Josh: talk about who's been pro space yes because there's some notable names that Josh: are very interested in the space race here yeah.

Ejaaz: There's a lot of people um talking about this josh um before Ejaaz: we get into that i kind of want to like lay out that this Ejaaz: is a very real problem and challenge because i'm sure a Ejaaz: lot of people listen to this and thinking well like i haven't heard any news Ejaaz: about this let me introduce you to some um there are two data centers that got Ejaaz: permitted to build these data centers from 2019 by the way josh they're worth

Ejaaz: hundreds of millions i think like book value is like 500 million dollars between Ejaaz: both of them, they're collecting dust. Ejaaz: There's no lights on in the data centers because they just can't get the energy Ejaaz: supply to power these, right? Ejaaz: And I think there's none other than Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Ejaaz: which can explain succinctly what exactly this problem is. I'm gonna play a little clip right here.

Ejaaz: The biggest issue we are now having is not a compute glut, but it's a power. Ejaaz: And it's sort of the ability to get the builds done fast enough close to power. Ejaaz: So if you can't do that, you may Ejaaz: actually have a bunch of chips sitting in inventory that I can't plug in. Ejaaz: In fact, that is my problem today, right? It's not a supply issue of chips. Ejaaz: It's actually the fact that I don't have warm shells to plug into.

Ejaaz: And so how some supply chain constraints emerge, tough to predict, Ejaaz: because the demand is just going, you know, is tough to predict. Ejaaz: So he's not also the only one that's been talking about this, Ejaaz: Josh. We've got the likes of SpaceX employees saying by 2045, Ejaaz: We're going to need enough compute to the base power of the entire planet to Ejaaz: power all kind of like data center efforts.

Ejaaz: Elon Musk says that there'll probably be electricity shortages in about two years time. Ejaaz: Sam Altman says we need to make a breakthrough, whether it's through fusion or something else. Ejaaz: Mark Zuckerberg says, listen, we would build a bigger data center, Ejaaz: but we just don't have the energy to supply. Ejaaz: So this is obviously something that is captivating some of the brightest entrepreneurial Ejaaz: minds in the world right now when it comes to scaling AI.

Ejaaz: And, you know, we see this at the infrastructure level as well. Ejaaz: You just heard Satya talk about something called the PowerShell. Ejaaz: What he's referring to here is not even just the energy supply lines that you Ejaaz: need to feed electricity into these data centers. Ejaaz: There's also like the manual labor, Josh. Ejaaz: There is the technicians, the specialists that you need to kind of like boost

Ejaaz: this entire thing. There's so many missing gaps here that we just don't meet it. Josh: It's funny. When I was in school, BOCES and like specialty job training was Josh: very popular. And that's kind of where you learn to become an electrician or a plumber. Josh: And a lot of these people, they didn't accrue a lot of debt. Josh: They left school early and they have like well-paying jobs now.

Josh: And it turns out in a world of post-AI where we have AGI and the robots haven't quite made it here. Josh: The people who we need the most are the electricians, are the plumbers, Josh: are the people who can do the cooling, the heating, the electricity wiring. Josh: Those are the most valuable jobs in the world. and the people are getting paid

Josh: a tremendous amount of money. Now, Josh: Before we get into this next section, I do want to frame a new question that Josh: we're going to answer a little bit later, but it's the actual narrative of space Josh: because a lot of people are trying to raise a tremendous amount of money, Josh: which requires a tremendous amount of optimism from the investors and the public.

Josh: And you have to ask the question, is this a real narrative or is this kind of Josh: an exponential kind of like moonshot guess, moonshot like kind of play that Josh: they're targeting to get people interested to raise more money to build their AI? Josh: I don't want to answer that yet. We're going to answer that as we go.

Josh: But by answering it, we're going to start with the first company who's actively Josh: doing this, which is a project called StarCloud. Josh: Now, StarCloud is the first prototype, as far as I'm aware, EJS, Josh: right, that's doing this. Can you tell me a little bit more about it? Ejaaz: For sure, yeah. So StarCloud is kind of what triggered this entire debate online, Josh.

Ejaaz: Prior to StarCloud announcing their prototype of launching a GPU in outer space, Ejaaz: everyone was kind of like oblivious to this entire thing. Ejaaz: And then Google and Elon Musk chimed in after it. So these are the pioneers.

Ejaaz: And they kind of pioneered it with Ejaaz: this prototype, which should already be launched in November, actually, Ejaaz: which is they launched an NVIDIA H100 GPU, which is technically the most powerful Ejaaz: computer that's ever existed in outer space, into outer space using Elon Musk's SpaceX shuttle. Ejaaz: And they ran a Google open source model called Gemma. So it's currently live and up there running.

Ejaaz: And the reason why this is such a big deal is it's mainly a testing phase to Ejaaz: see if GPUs can survive in outer space. It's running on its own. Ejaaz: It's training on its own. It's being iterated to on its own outside in space Ejaaz: whilst communicating to their servers on Earth. Ejaaz: And what they're really trying to figure out here is, number one, Ejaaz: is it feasible or will this GPU just die from radiation? We're going to get Ejaaz: into some of the challenges in a second.

Ejaaz: And number two, does it make economical sense? Ejaaz: Like if we can do this with one GPU, can we scale this to hundreds of thousands Ejaaz: of GPUs? So they're the real ones, Josh, that started this trend. Josh: The initial thing that I found funny about StarCloud was the 16 square kilometer heat diffuser. Josh: Oh, yeah. That was kind of where I got caught up on, where five gigawatts of Josh: energy means 16 square kilometers of metal that it took to diffuse this.

Josh: Because again, in space, there is no atmosphere. Josh: There is no place to cool it besides shooting the radiation off into deep space. Josh: It's not like you can run like cold air over this because there is no air. Josh: So I think as I've kind of learned more about the StarCloud project, Josh: I've started to realize like, OK, that's that's that's kind of within reason. Josh: And that's an early prototype in how they're going to go about actually dissipating heat.

Josh: So six square miles of solar panels, they fold it into a rocket. Josh: They could send it out on a starship. It's like it's pretty cool. Josh: It seems like it makes sense. Josh: Ejaz, is there anything that I'm missing here that technically doesn't make Josh: a whole lot of sense based on these posts?

Ejaaz: Yeah i mean you nailed a technical challenge number Ejaaz: one which is like these deployable structures are not only so large for the Ejaaz: amount of compute that it's supposedly meant to be supporting like these things Ejaaz: like you said are 16 square kilometers that is huge to fuel do you know how Ejaaz: much power it fuels actually josh it's like what's it one gigawatt or is it Ejaaz: less than that like maybe 100 kilowatts well

Josh: It's showing five gigawatts now for the data center yeah. Ejaaz: Yeah, okay, right. Four by four. Yeah. So that's technical challenge number one. Ejaaz: And then technical challenge number two down here is the radiation that you Ejaaz: mentioned, which is basically, you know, you have all these kind of like nuclear Ejaaz: and atoms flying around, which Ejaaz: can really mess with the composure and structure of these data centers.

Ejaaz: Radiation is a very real issue in space. That's why you have all these different Ejaaz: space suits and insulation. Ejaaz: So if you expose hardware to this and it kind of messes up with any kind of Ejaaz: the machinery of it's doing its job, then it becomes more and more implausible. Ejaaz: But these are things that they were kind of at like the frontier testing in Ejaaz: terms of research. We haven't really found a resolution just yet.

Ejaaz: There are solutions like kind of like cooling that you mentioned, Ejaaz: but otherwise there's no clear cut solution.

Josh: Yeah. Okay. But there is another company that we're all familiar with that does Josh: have a seemingly more clear cut solution and a seemingly more clear roadmap Josh: which um i believe the ceo goes by the name of elon musk if i'm not mistaken Josh: and yeah elon and spacex have a strategy uh we have a clip here that i think Josh: you wanted to share maybe we could start there and we'll get into how exactly Josh: this is all going to work in.

Ejaaz: Order in order to harness a non-trivial amount of the energy of the sun you Ejaaz: have to move to solar-powered ai satellites in deep space um Ejaaz: Somewhat is a confluence of Tesla expertise and SpaceX expertise and XAI on the AI front. Josh: So there's three critical pillars that Elon mentioned in that little summary. Josh: There's Tesla, SpaceX, and XAI.

Josh: SpaceX is the single most important pillar in that because without the ability Josh: to get mass to orbit, it is impossible to build these data centers in the first place. Josh: And the reason why the window is just barely starting to open is because we're Josh: able to get the cost per kilogram down low enough to make it economically viable. Josh: Because when we started with the space shuttle, Ejaz, it cost $60,000 per kilogram Josh: to get something into orbit.

Josh: Nothing is going to make that viable if it costs $60,000 per kilogram because Josh: these data centers are very, very heavy and so are the solar panels, Josh: so are the batteries, so all of that. Josh: Falcon Heavy, which is SpaceX's newer rocket, got that cost down to $1,500 per kilogram.

Josh: So we've already seen like a few orders of magnitude decrease and Starship, Josh: which we've covered in previous episodes, that is planning to go to Mars and Josh: beyond, it's still not working, but they're planning to get it fully reusable by next year. Josh: That brings the cost per kilogram down to $10 per kilogram, which is the window Josh: that enables this conversation to happen. Josh: Because in the absence of Starship, we cannot send mass to orbit at scale.

Josh: With Starship working, we can actually talk about sending these data centers into space.

Josh: And that's a hugely powerful unlock that only exists Josh: because of spacex which is why i think it's important to pay attention to elon when Josh: he talks about this stuff because he's the one who's enabled this to Josh: even be a possible conversation um earth gets Josh: only one to two billionth of Josh: the sun's energy so if you go a million times earth's Josh: capacity you must go into space is kind of thinking where in order to scale

Josh: ai to the size that we want in order for true agi for for ai that scales infinitely Josh: with us we need to go past earth's ability to generate energy and we need to Josh: go out into the stars and that's kind of the the thesis with elon and the xai thing. Ejaaz: Got it. I mean, I was just looking at this other post, Josh, Ejaaz: where, you know, StarCloud is kind of laying out the economics for their kind of projections.

Ejaaz: And they say something pretty similar, which is like, on Earth, Ejaaz: it costs near like $200 million to kind of run a 40 megawatt data center for 10 years. Ejaaz: Technically, or theoretically, in orbit, it would be worth $8.2 million, Ejaaz: which is 20 times cheaper. Ejaaz: So what I'm hearing from you and the Elon case is that, well, Ejaaz: number one, he's going to be the toll master. Ejaaz: He's going to basically own the highway into space. Josh: He's the Jensen Huang of space.

Ejaaz: He's the Jensen Huang of space. That's perfect. We have to trademark that term. Ejaaz: He's the Jensen Huang of space.

Ejaaz: That's crazy good. So he's going to not only own that toll, but the other thing, Josh, Ejaaz: which I know we both love the idea of and which he actually commented on in this tweet, Ejaaz: he says, simply scaling up Starlink V3 satellites, which are the main satellites Ejaaz: that he deploys from his SpaceX launchers will have high speed laser links, which would work. Ejaaz: And what he's referring to here is work in terms of like a interconnected network.

Ejaaz: So these satellites would beam lasers to each other one terabit per second speeds Ejaaz: to be able to train or inference AI models up at that level. Ejaaz: So imagine like a satellite network kind of in space orbiting Earth that you Ejaaz: can use to beam terabits worth of data at super rapid speeds between each of Ejaaz: the satellites, train your AI model, and then beam it back down to Earth. Ejaaz: Just sounds so nuts at this point, Josh, that I can't quite wrap my head around.

Ejaaz: And then the third thing that he's talked about, Josh, I don't know if you saw Ejaaz: this, he's talking about quantum computing on the dark craters of the moon. Ejaaz: Can you, sorry, can you help me wrap my head around this? What the hell is this? What's this concept? Josh: Yeah, I'm pulling a number out of thin air. I believe it's right, Josh: though, where the craters, there are craters in the moon.

Josh: So there is no dark side of the moon, but there are craters that never see the sun. Josh: Those craters exist at a perpetual negative 200 degrees Celsius. Josh: They are literally frozen solid. Josh: There is no heat that gets in or out. Josh: And if you can place a gigantic data center in one of those craters at negative Josh: 200 degrees Celsius or whatever the exact amount is, you have a pretty good cooling system.

Josh: Like it's not that bad. And each as you'll often see with quantum computers, Josh: there's this huge mechanism on top of them. And then there's this tiny little chip at the bottom. Josh: The entire mechanism on top of it is just to keep it cool.

Josh: The actual chip is is the size of a normal chip but because Josh: it's so important and so necessary to get Josh: quantum computing chips at solid zero so that the qubits don't move around too Josh: much that's why they need it so there is a world in which quantum computing Josh: makes sense if we can get it into outer space there is some data and energy Josh: notes that elon has that i wrote down that i want to share briefly because this Josh: is also fascinating and he said,

Josh: Starship should be able to deliver around 300 gigawatts per year of solar-powered Josh: AI satellites to orbit, maybe 500 gigawatts. Josh: So if this is true, within a few years of full-rate Starship launches, Josh: orbital AI could rival or exceed entire country's electrical consumption. Josh: So the scale of this is outrageous. And granted, this is all very optimistic. Josh: This is all very forward-looking, very sci-fi-esque.

Josh: But in the case that is even directionally correct the Josh: next 10 to 20 years of these launches the next 10 to Josh: 20 years of compute can scale in Josh: a really exciting way and we were talking to to luke who helps produce the show Josh: right before this and he made a great point that said in order to get exponential Josh: gains in progress you need exponential gains in technology or something along Josh: those lines and it's so true where if we really want to build ai that changes

Josh: the trajectory of the universe you need to do something novel, something new. Josh: And doing this all in space and unlocking this new energy source feels like Josh: the natural progression given Josh: where we are in terms of technological capability back here on Earth. Ejaaz: It's also equally fair to say that Elon sometimes gets ahead of himself. Ejaaz: Like he can see the vision, right? But his projections are way too near term Ejaaz: to what it actually requires to get to that point.

Ejaaz: And I wish I could critique him, Josh, except that there's also another person, Ejaaz: which is bull posting about AI data centers in space.

Ejaaz: And it is Sundar from Google, the CEO of Google, who in pretty much every single Ejaaz: interview, this clip that I'm showing you on the screen right now is from an Ejaaz: interview he did literally yesterday, Ejaaz: which has got nothing to do with Google's AI space efforts specifically, Ejaaz: but he had to shell Google's project called Project Suncatcher, Ejaaz: where they are also aiming to put Google's TPUs, which is their GPU equivalent,

Ejaaz: into space so that they can harness the power of the sun. Ejaaz: There are too many important people talking about these things, Ejaaz: Josh, where like my inner, kind of like half my brain is kind of fighting against Ejaaz: this, saying this is absolutely ridiculous. Ejaaz: But the other half, I think, is overwhelmingly now in favor of this thing might actually work. Josh: Yeah, it's their moonshot. It's another Google moonshot.

Josh: And again, I'm going to tease the question, is this just a narrative thing to Josh: get people excited to invest more in their companies? Josh: Or is this real technology? Maybe we'll see. Josh: He is partnering with Planet, a company named Planet, and their plan is to launch Josh: two prototype satellites by Josh: early 2027 to test TPUs and optical links to orbit and see how that works.

Josh: In the previous example with SpaceX, you mentioned that there is these like Josh: space lasers that can talk to each other.

Josh: A cool thing is that you can communicate at the Josh: speed of light there is no kind of interference in space Josh: so the time that it takes for a photon to get from one laser Josh: to or one satellite to the next is the latency between the two which is very Josh: very fast so there is a world in which theoretically if you're looking at this Josh: from first principles based on there are no laws of physics that are being violated

Josh: in order to do this so therefore it's a matter of technical capability technical called prowess, Josh: and our intellectual ability to actually figure out and solve these problems. Josh: It's funny seeing Google and Elon kind of converge on this. I assume, Josh: like you mentioned earlier, a lot of other companies are not far behind.

Josh: They just don't quite have the infrastructure or the ability to tackle a problem Josh: like this. But it seems very real. Josh: And they're planning to do this as soon as the next 24 months with the new TPEs Josh: that we've been talking about so often. Sundar.

Ejaaz: Said that they're already prototyping a bunch of radiation measures on ground Ejaaz: here at earth to make sure that their tpus can survive so the next natural step Ejaaz: there is to launch these babies into space probably using elon musk's spacex Ejaaz: because he is the thomas he's the jensen and Josh: To that point actually the uh the economics and the launch cost they actually Josh: we have a quote here that says uh their modeling says if launch costs get under

Josh: 200 per kilogram to orbit by the mid-2030s then space-based compute could be Josh: comparable to earth data centers on a per kilowatt per year basis so Josh: If we can get 20 times more than what Elon's projecting. Josh: So if the cost is pretty high. So if it's 20 times more expensive than what Josh: Elon's projecting in a decade from now, then we'll have parity with Earth.

Josh: So it gives you a testament to like the timelines of this. And maybe this is Josh: a good time to go into the pros and cons of what. Ejaaz: Is good about this, Josh: What is bad about this. And maybe humble people a little bit, Josh: Ejaz, if you want to start with the cons as to why this isn't as rosy as we Josh: think it might be. like maybe maybe bring us back down to earth in fact.

Ejaaz: I i that's that's where i did did not expect that part josh um okay right so Ejaaz: i'm going to start off with the bear case here which you've mentioned a few Ejaaz: times which is this is just a narrative play by some of the biggest companies Ejaaz: to boost their valuations and let me explain the problem to you right Ejaaz: Up until today, speaking about these data centers in space, the focus has been on GPUs.

Ejaaz: GPUs is the new gold, right? It's what you need to kind of train your AI. Ejaaz: And then we found out that they don't have enough energy to kind of like fuel these things. Ejaaz: Now, the reason why this is so important, as this post explains, Ejaaz: is a lot of these companies, Sundar's company, Google, Elon Musk's companies, Ejaaz: are valued based on the amount of GPUs they've been purchasing. Ejaaz: And the Wall Street analysts have basically assumed, okay, the amount of GPUs

Ejaaz: that this company buys is equal to the economic output. I can do a simple formula, Ejaaz: right? If they're buying these GPUs, they're going live. Ejaaz: What they haven't factored in is that these GPUs aren't going live. Ejaaz: They're just sitting collecting dust. Ejaaz: And so that's less ROI per quarter than they initially projected, Ejaaz: which means that the valuations of these companies should probably be lowered. Ejaaz: So what's the countermeasure to this, Josh?

Ejaaz: Well, obviously it's infinite energy. obviously it's what was Ejaaz: that 99.98% of the solar system is the Ejaaz: sun it's all that energy so if you can miraculously wow Ejaaz: now figure out a way to harness that energy you can Ejaaz: now maintain that valuation dare I say boost the Ejaaz: valuations right share prices go up after you you hear Sundar talking about Ejaaz: this uh google's on an absolute run so that's my skeptics take I think that

Ejaaz: they might be kind of like feeling this narrative which they know is a decade Ejaaz: out from any kind of real uh prototype being out there that scales um so that's Ejaaz: my back is do you agree do you disagree with this yeah Josh: I i think setting expectations on timing is probably Josh: going to be fairly important because again like satya's saying mid 2030s i mean Josh: elon's probably saying tomorrow but the reality is it's probably mid 2030s it's

Josh: going to take a while to get all this stuff to orbit and do it at scale that's Josh: comparable to the united states now when i think about that i think about what Josh: does the world of ai look like, Josh: In the mid 2030s. Like, what are we? What's it going to look like here? Josh: Like, we are moving so fast. Josh: And to project 10 years into the future, my God, I don't know what the world looks like. Ejaaz: So our energy bill is going to be 5x, Josh.

Josh: Or maybe we have people like Isaiah Taylor, who was on the show last week, Josh: solving nuclear reactors right here on home. Josh: And we actually have energy abundance. That's enough for our midterm goals prior Josh: to extending out to the long term goals. Maybe this is a fun time to talk briefly Josh: about the Kardashev scale, which is a sci-fi thing, and there's three tiers to it.

Josh: The first one being you can harness the entire energy of your planet, Josh: and then it's the energy of your sun, and then the energy of your solar system. Josh: We have been able to collect perhaps a very small fraction of Kardashev level Josh: one, which is of the planet, the energy that hits our planet. Josh: So there's a very long way to go, but I think this is kind of like the grand Josh: sci-fi vision that gets people excited, gets people motivated.

Josh: If I'm going to work at a company like SpaceX, I'm stoked at the idea of building Josh: super intelligence in outer space. That's a cool mission to have. Josh: And like so many of the other missions, it's not physics constrained. Josh: It is possible. You can do this thing if you can figure out how to create the Josh: technology to do it. So I love the ambition. Josh: Is it a narrative play to get more money? Josh: Maybe, probably. But in the case of Google and Tesla and SpaceX,

Josh: it doesn't seem that way. hey, if this was coming from someone like OpenAI or Josh: Perplexity or Anthropic, I would feel a little bit differently about it. Josh: But Google's always had a moonshot division since the beginning of time. Josh: I mean, that's the reason why AI exists in the current state it does today is Josh: because they spend so many resources on research and development.

Josh: If you remember from our episode yesterday, Ejaz, they developed the first neural network 15 years ago. Josh: They did. So it's been under development for a long time. And this very much Josh: feels like a similar project where these timelines are going to be 10 to 15 Josh: years. But the research starts now. Josh: And it's very important research because directionally it feels like this is correct.

Josh: Directionally, we're going to need more energy than we can have on Earth, Josh: even if we solve nuclear power, because of the hope that it's going to require Josh: so much energy to power superintelligence that will be smarter than the smartest thing on Earth. Josh: And it just it's a fun science experiment maybe it's a narrative violation because Josh: they're getting a little ahead of the gun but you know it could it could be and i like this future.

Ejaaz: So do i i think my optimistic take on Ejaaz: this is all of these things um nuclear fission nuclear power coming into like Ejaaz: a scalable means renewable energy and you know harnessing energy from the sun Ejaaz: all comes collectively at a time in the mid 2030s where our energy bills are Ejaaz: going through the roof and we cannot afford anything else. Ejaaz: We need to rely on another energy source. And I think it's all going to neatly Ejaaz: come at the right time, Josh.

Ejaaz: I don't know what makes me think that this might actually happen, Ejaaz: but I think we are well on our way to do that. Ejaaz: But to your point, there's a bunch of challenges, right? Ejaaz: So we've mentioned kind of like some engineering challenges around protecting Ejaaz: against radiation and building and deploying these infrastructures out in space. Ejaaz: Right now it's too expensive, right?

Ejaaz: But the idea is presumably using SpaceX's, I'll call it the tunnel to space Ejaaz: or the highway to space, it'll eventually reduce the cost down by, Ejaaz: you know, maximum weight. So we're able to kind of achieve this. Ejaaz: The other thing is kind of like maintenance, right? So it's like a lot of these Ejaaz: things require a lot of attention. Ejaaz: Like we mentioned earlier that, you know, supplying energy is just one thing.

Ejaaz: You need to have technicians and experts on there that can like kind of connect Ejaaz: the right plugs between satellites and make sure that they speak to each other Ejaaz: or GPUs between each other. Ejaaz: Are we going to have astronauts roaming around these data centers on space? Ejaaz: That is kind of harder to wrap my head around because it just seems infeasible. Ejaaz: We don't do that right now. why would it be in 10 years time?

Ejaaz: Maybe it will be. I'm being optimistic. I have to maintain optimism here, Josh. Josh: And hey, maybe robots. Robots in 10 years, probably gonna be pretty good. Ejaaz: Oh, Josh, I need to buy more Tesla. I need to buy more Tesla. Ejaaz: You've just, the humanoids. Ejaaz: Oh God, we are getting way too bullish on the con section. Ejaaz: Okay, hang on, wait, hang on. We got to remain tethered to Earth.

Ejaaz: Speaking of tethering to Earth, actually, how do we get this data and compute Ejaaz: that we generate in space down back to Earth? Ejaaz: Presumably the majority of the humans are still going to be on Earth, Ejaaz: right, Josh? So a question that's in my mind is like, what is the receiving Ejaaz: infrastructure of this look like? And is that economically feasible? Ejaaz: Elon seems to claim so in that thread that we showed earlier.

Ejaaz: And Sundar has said multiple times that, yeah, we can just beam data down. Ejaaz: We can just beam some of the learnings, the compute down. Ejaaz: I don't know if anyone's actually proven that. And it's because we need to do Ejaaz: step one first, which is launch the data center. Ejaaz: So there's so much that this relies on that needs to be kind of solved via frontier Ejaaz: research that we're kind of Ejaaz: hoping for, but we haven't got any definitive proof, if that makes sense.

Ejaaz: So if you're investing in this stuff, it's definitely a longer horizon type thing. Josh: Yeah, conceptually, it all makes sense. We're learning a lot from Starlink, Josh: actually, in terms of latency and sending things back to Earth, Josh: where if you're sending data that's timely, it's a little difficult because Josh: there are tens to hundreds of milliseconds that are added in the latency between the two.

Josh: But if you're batch training, if you're just training mega amounts of AI and Josh: then you're beaming them in batches down to Earth, there's enough bandwidth, Josh: if you disregard latency, to send quite a bit of data pretty quickly. Josh: So I suspect there's some healthy middle ground there where they'll talk to Josh: each other very fast and they'll beam data down kind of slow.

Josh: And that will be okay um there are pros there's lots of pros we talked about Josh: a few energy abundance being one cooling being one where you can just create Josh: mega radiators you could send things on the dark side of the moon put them in Josh: craters where it's really cold um the environmental thing there's you don't Josh: need permits or you don't use water or you don't need energy we're just, Josh: unobstructed by ai which is kind of an interesting thing because currently ai

Josh: is very intrusive um it uses a tremendous amount of data and resources and energy and, Josh: human labor, which maybe is a good thing to some extent, but that's another thing. Josh: And then we have just like the sovereignty and resilience point where when stuff Josh: is in space, it is pretty anti-fragile. No one's really going up there to mess Josh: with it. It is very secure. Josh: You kind of know what you're getting when it's up there. You set it,

Josh: you forget it. It's a nice thing. So that's kind of how I think we would weigh the pros and cons.

Ejaaz: Okay. So if those are the pros and those are the cons, the next natural question for me, Josh, Ejaaz: is like, if I was an analyst looking at this over the next say like five to Ejaaz: ten years yeah what kind of milestones should i be looking for like do you have Ejaaz: any idea of what or like what's like what's sensor i guess is it like an entire Ejaaz: data center out there or is it a couple of gpus what is it yeah

Josh: So because there are a few companies that are actively working on this problem Josh: we can just kind of evaluate their progress as i think a way of tracking things Josh: so we could set a few milestones starting with the suncatcher prototypes who Josh: are planned to go up in 2027. Josh: So if you're trying to map out trajectories, we have Project Suncatcher. Josh: We could ask the question, did the 2027 Suncatcher prototypes launch on time?

Josh: Did they actually even make it to outer space? Is Starship working? Josh: Are they able to carry the correct payloads? Is the payload even able to get into outer space? Josh: Then once it's in outer space, we can ask the question, well, Josh: does it actually work? Is it able to shield itself from radiation? Josh: Is it able to power itself on? Is it able to cool itself down? Josh: Do they show working optical links and TPUs in orbit? Can they actually make that work?

Josh: So we have the prototypes of Suncatcher. Then we want to look at Starship cadence. Josh: Is Starship actually getting the cost to orbit low enough to make this economically Josh: viable? That, I think, actually is the single most important thing to look out Josh: for, is the Starship program. Josh: If you are not watching every Starship launch with us on this show, Josh: you are missing out, because we're going to cover every single one.

Josh: It's the most important thing to the progress of this project. Josh: And we are going to closely monitor how the cost per kilogram to orbit is going. Josh: As long as that number is going down, as long as Starship's Josh: start blowing up less, that's going to be a huge win. And that's going to make it at least plausible. Josh: And then the third thing I guess to monitor is the power crisis on Earth.

Josh: We want to see how much power we're able to generate outside of these moonshot ideas. Josh: So are people like Isaiah Taylor of Valor able to create modular nuclear reactors Josh: to power gigawatts of these data centers and eventually terawatts? Josh: Are we able to use natural gas turbines and other forms of renewable energy Josh: to not only power data centers, but our day to day lives? Josh: Can we do so without making the electricity bills run too high.

Josh: So I think the convergence of these three things are things to look out for Josh: that we can monitor, that will probably give us a better idea of the roadmap, Josh: how we're going in the trajectory. Josh: And again, 10 years from now, who knows what the world looks like. Josh: But that's what I'm going to be looking out for, at least. Ejaaz: Yeah, I think that last point is actually one of the most important things, Ejaaz: because maybe this is a hot take.

Ejaaz: But I think the AI data centers in space hype dies down if things like nuclear Ejaaz: and renewables can scale on Earth. because people aren't going to focus on things Ejaaz: in outer space if they can just kind of fix the thing on problem on Earth. Ejaaz: I think this is more of a philosophical semantic thing due to human nature versus Ejaaz: kind of doing something in the sky where they haven't spent that much time out there, right?

Ejaaz: And then the other thing is like, to your point, we've got to reduce the cost Ejaaz: of space travel, which I fully believe Elon's going to do, but he has to prove Ejaaz: it before people get really bullish and confident that this can be a thing.

Ejaaz: But that's it. Those are the pros and cons. And that is the thesis and the pick, Ejaaz: the for and against for AI data centers in outer space Ejaaz: It's so funny seeing our evolution and reaction to this, Josh, Ejaaz: given that six weeks ago, we were absolutely laughing at this when StarCloud Ejaaz: announced that they were launching an H100 GPU in space.

Ejaaz: And now here we are opining about, you know, Elon being the toll master, Ejaaz: it being cheap enough to launch data centers in space, and then figuring out Ejaaz: how to beam down terabits of data to Earth. Ejaaz: Just an insane thing that I can't quite wrap my head around. Ejaaz: But it's been a super fun episode. Ejaaz: And just like the trajectory of putting data centers in outer orbit, Ejaaz: there's something else that is reaching the levels and that is exiting the stratosphere.

Ejaaz: Josh, it is the limitless follow-up page. It is our social pages. It is our YouTube pages. Ejaaz: We have gained, I think, what was it? 3,000 subscribers over the last couple of... More? Tell me. Josh: Over 4K. And that's not enough because 80% of those people are still not subscribed Josh: who are listening to the episode.

Josh: So if you're listening on YouTube, please make sure not only click the subscribe Josh: button, but there's a little bell next to it, which means you could turn on Josh: notifications to get notified whenever a new episode comes out. Josh: Happens three times a week. They're all pretty good. They normally range from 25 to 35 minutes. Josh: And if you enjoy them with your friends, you should share them along because Josh: it really makes a big difference to the growth of this podcast.

Josh: And we're trying to grow. Josh: We're trying to make this the biggest thing ever.

Josh: We've been stalling out a little on the audio front. So if you do prefer to Josh: listen to it as a podcast, Josh: perhaps go find it on your favorite podcast player, like apple podcast or pocket Josh: cast is my preferred one those are good places to to find out and hang out with Josh: us but yeah i think that's mostly it jazz do you have any parting words because Josh: i actually i have one parting story so you go first.

Ejaaz: Okay. One final thing is we also have a newsletter and we have about 70,000 Ejaaz: of you tuning in every single week. Ejaaz: Either Josh and I write an essay or a thesis on what we think the future of AI is going to look like. Ejaaz: Our last one is a juicy bull case on Anthropik. You'll go check it out. Ejaaz: And we give you the five highlights of the week. So we are anywhere and everywhere Ejaaz: that you could possibly ingest information about AI and frontier tech.

Ejaaz: Follow, subscribe, give us your email list. Josh, what is your parting words? Josh: Yeah, there's actually a lot of alpha in there. Google, Ejaz, Josh: you wrote the Google Bowl case like four or five weeks ago, and the price has Josh: gone off like 20% since then. Josh: So if you're not listening to or reading the newsletter, I would advise. Josh: I wanted to leave with one little bit of sci-fi because when I do episodes like Josh: this, I'm always reminded...

Josh: Of sci-fi. Like when I look at the future, I'm always reminded of sci-fi books Josh: and a lot of them get it wrong. Josh: But I think you could almost always find a sci-fi story that will map to the Josh: reality that we're having currently. And you kind of see this with Black Mirror. Josh: One of them that I would encourage everyone to read, it's called The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.

Josh: And it's where I see this going as we move AI into space, where he kind of like Josh: tracks the progress of humanity over millions of years. Josh: And each time there is a smarter and smarter and smarter AI.

Josh: And it is an all knowing form of intelligence. And every time it gets smarter, Josh: because they've been able to capture more and more energy and eventually it leads Josh: to the last question which is the last question humanity will Josh: ever need to answer um which i will leave that for you guys Josh: to explore and to uncover for yourself but it Josh: is like it's so exciting that we get to live Josh: in this world that feels like a sci-fi novel where

Josh: we're actually talking about sending ai into outer Josh: space building artificial general intelligence doing so using space Josh: rockets and satellites it's like it's really cool and it's Josh: not here today but there is a very clear trajectory to getting there in the Josh: future so i think that's mostly what we are excited Josh: about covering and i think the people who have been here with us Josh: long enough understand that and they're excited to be on the journey with us so for

Josh: all of you who have made it this far through our fairly long episode today thank Josh: you i hope you enjoyed the space race um our agi in space episode i hope you Josh: left informed or excited optimistic or just downright frustrated that we are Josh: missing the mark so much and ai in space is stupid but whichever one it is let Josh: us know in the comments down below and we will see you guys in the next one thank you so much for.