ExclusiveElon Musk’s $1.5 Trillion Secret: AI Data Centers in Space?

2030, AI is going to need a third of the global power. How do you do that? How do you make another third of power? So I think what he's talking about is that to put all these data centers in space. Welcome to another episode of Silicon Valley Front Row. I'm Steve Vespas and this is David Lam and we have a very interesting episode for you today. Yeah Steve, so we're going to be talking about Elon Musk and SpaceX and AI. So why is this important and why now? Well I think it's important because through this event that he talks about and this IPO he's planning, SpaceX is planning to have an IPO in 2026. If this goes through the way he's planning it to go through, it looks to me like Elon Musk is going to control the whole AI industry worldwide and we kind of know how big we expect the AI industry to be. Yeah and that's insane because Elon Musk already has dominance over many things like Tesla, the Tesla robots and many other projects. So it almost seems like he was a little bit behind with AI because we have of course NVIDIA making the chips and we have OpenAI which has GPT and then Oracle and all these other companies building data centers and it almost seemed to me like he has XAI but he was kind of a little bit behind. So now, this is about a few weeks ago that he had this presentation I guess at this US-Saudi forum. The gist of it is that the main problem with AI growing the way people want it to grow, maybe that's not a good thing but you know it still happens, right? The way people want to is that the power, there's not enough power, right? And we talked about that before. For sure. And power comes in with water because you need cooling and all that. So is there enough energy to supply the demand that AI needs? It's not, I mean they're making the point that in I think in a few years, maybe 2030, AI is going to need a third of the global power. How do you do that? How do you make another third of power? So I think what he's talking about is that to put all these data centers in space and he's so much ahead of time with this because he has SpaceX and SpaceX they already placed I think like 6,000 satellites in space. So if you think about it, it's pretty amazing because here's one of the rockets taking off. It's either he really planned ahead or just knew how to strategically position his companies or himself in that way he could prepare for these things. Yes. It's hard to believe that these are coincidences but I think in some of the stories people mentioned that Oracle spent 12 billion dollars in the last quarter to build data centers and all these companies spend so much money to build data centers and if he does it in space there's going to be so much advantage because the power is not an issue because he has solar panels that can power non-stop. 24-7. Yeah, the computers or the chips and then also from what I understand he doesn't need to worry about cooling because in space you don't need to worry about cooling. For a technical reason I don't understand yet. Maybe he needs to worry about keeping the centers warm. Yeah, maybe. But I don't think they need to worry about that either and they have power from solar. Right, and they could be even closer to the sun as well out there. In addition, 24-7 power, right? Exactly, no clouds. Yeah, no clouds because the satellites keep changing I guess. They go around the earth but you can switch to different satellites that there's always something going to have solar power. So he'd be ahead of the competition from everyone on earth if this goes through. And they're talking about raising 30 billion dollars through the IPO which these days it's not even that big of a number but it would still be the biggest raise of money through an IPO. The previous one was 2019 and it was a Saudi company that was 29 billion. So with 30 he would be the the highest ever raising of money. That's insane. Yes, and I think from what I understood the valuation of the company would be 1.5 trillion dollars. So they would make it maybe third or fourth in the world. And also what's interesting is that that's what we see this headline right behind you. Most of his companies are public which means that he may not be able to raise as much money as if they were public. I mean they're private. Most of the companies are private. So if this one becomes public he won't have as much control as he usually does. So that's why it's going to say it's going to be his biggest headache but maybe he doesn't care that much about having that much control. He's more worried about raising money to build it, make it bigger. Right, right. But the idea of building these data centers in space is pretty amazing because even last week or last month people are struggling how they're going to build so much power on the earth. And overnight he says, oh we're not going to do it on earth. We're just going to completely go out in space to do it. I mean if you even think about houses and getting the land to kind of furnish it and getting all the permits and requirements. Exactly. Right, exactly. That's already tough here. Like even in California we have those zoning laws. Yes. Like there's people that want to make extra income so they do they build ADUs right in their extra space in their homes. Yes. They already have restrictions there so I can see why Elon Musk is trying to branch out. Okay so to put it into perspective how much energy is being used. So the U.S. generates about 450 gigawatts of power every year. That's according to Hart Energy. Yes. And what do you know about Starlink and how much AI uses? Well from what I've read they could through their satellites they could produce 300 gigawatts power per year. But they can launch more satellites so they can they can pretty much double that every year. So if they go at that rate within two years they would equal or surpass the whole power of the whole earth. I don't know if we carefully verify those numbers but I've seen that in several sources. So I guess we'll just move on to reading the comments from our viewers. All right here we go. All right so this is a comment from a viewer named Stay Vigilant. Thank you so much for commenting. And this is on the video of the surprising truth about AI investments regarding the 95% generative AI pilot. Oh yes yeah yeah yeah. So the comment is AI trading is so hyped nowadays I'm glad I watched this video and learned what the unbiased research says. So yeah we're glad that our videos could be helpful to you. And yeah we do like to look at some of the reports that people have put out to do our episodes. So do you remember this in this episode I believe it was the MIT. That's right it was the MIT study and we emphasize how because it's a student study or staff they're not you know very aligned with the AI company or think tank. So it's more likely that it's a truthful unbiased study and we stand by that. So thank you for the comment I think that's that's very true. So the first question for our audience is what do you think about the SpaceX IPO and do you think through this IPO Elon Musk is going to take the lead in the AI race that's happening currently worldwide. And on top of that do you think building infrastructure in outer space is something that is a good idea. Let us know. Or a game changer. Yeah or a game changer. Thank you for watching don't forget to subscribe let your friends know about our channel and come visit us next time.