Why Scaling AI is Underestimated ⚡
The future of energy needs a re-think to scale AI indefinitely. Orbital datacenters are part of that future solution. So are solar arrayed power in space infrastructure & lunar manufacturing. 🌌
AI Supremacy is a Newsletter about AI at the intersection of business, innovation, technology, society, and the future of civilization. Follow me as Read Futurist.
Seventy-five years ago, the idea of harnessing the power of the skies was little more than fantasy spun by futurists like Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov.
What if, we are about to see it happen in our generation.
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Good Morning,
This piece is going to read a bit different from usual pieces, because it’s a topic I’ve been considering for some time (where I cover space-tech companies and Neo Cloud observations).
This weekend (basically the last four days) I’ve been frantically pondering how scaling AI requires not just a better semiconductor supply-chain, but a radically improved energy source and cost-efficiency structure. We have the nascent technology to manifest this already. But as a civilization are we able to do it? Who are the major players going to be?
On the topic of orbital datacenters it’s worth considering a more futuristic solution to AI Infrastructure and energy-efficiency and that to me might be trans-orbital manufacturing, Space-mining and scaling AI with energy of the Sun. It’s very science-fiction like pre 2026, but not as far off as you might think.
This is because rocket launches get cheaper and far more numerous and the energy bottleneck becomes far more intense for AI and capex in the decade ahead due to new (fairly dirty and inefficient) datacenter projects. My base case is that lunar and orbital bases will become accelerated, space manufacturing becomes normative, and new concepts around AI datacenters in space will proliferate. Even in the late 2020s.
It won’t be enough to spend a $Trillion dollar1 on capex (like they will in 2027), it will require a radically more energy and cost efficient solution to scale.
The Catalyst
When SpaceX goes public in an IPO later in 2026 (maybe as early as June), the promise of the future isn’t just about datacenters, it’s about harnessing more of the Sun’s energy to fuel AI at a sale that isn’t currently possible with the U.S. energy grid constraints, or even terrestrial datacenters.
Easily one of the most important Elon Musk interviews ever, Read the transcript here, we are going to be going over this quite a bit.
Watch it on YouTube
The Rise of BigAI
Imagine a future where OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX (where xAI is now merged as a subsidiary) all become key AI Cloud computing full-stack companies. The one with the most compute will have an absurd advantage over the others, if you believe scaling AI with more compute will matter.
Let me repeat, they will all become Cloud computing hyperscalers in their own right too. Orbital datacenters and future space infrastructure affords an AI Cloud on a planetary level of scale. 🌍 There is no decent concept of this in 2026, it is a pioneering landscape.
