While industry rivals pursue off-planet facilities to escape terrestrial energy constraints, Amazon Web Services argues that space-based alternatives cannot match the scale of Earth-bound deployments. Garman stressed that modern computing hubs demand gigawatts of power, whereas current orbital solar setups primarily generate kilowatts alongside severe heat dissipation challenges. By contrast, Google is preparing 2027 prototype tests for its satellite network, and SpaceX has sought federal approval for a massive orbital constellation.
Key points
Orbital data centres remain economically impractical for the next one to two decades due…: Orbital data centres remain economically impractical for the next one to two decades due to launch costs, server weight, and maintenance barriers.
Radiating server heat without atmospheric air and generating gigawatts of orbital solar p…: Radiating server heat without atmospheric air and generating gigawatts of orbital solar power present immense technical hurdles.
Earth-based facilities located in deserts remain the most viable option for fulfilling hi…: Earth-based facilities located in deserts remain the most viable option for fulfilling high-capacity computing and cooling requirements.
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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.
Why Matt Garman is questioning space data centres
Garman pointed to launch costs and frequency as obstacles to moving computing infrastructure into orbit. “Number one, launches are still relatively infrequent and expensive,” he said.
He compared that pace with AWS’s deployment of computing equipment: “We're landing in a data center today, one GPU every 14 seconds.” GPUs,…
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