Artificial intelligence companies are planning on investing unbelievable sums — more than a trillion dollars per year by OpenAI alone — building out enormous data centers that consume copious amounts of electricity, generate pollution, and take up considerable amounts of room.
They’ve also been blamed for negative impacts on local water supplies, and make a lot of noise, making them unpopular among nearby residents.
Now, in a bid to scale up operations while bypassing the controversy, many in the AI industry have turned to an outrageous pitch: operating data centers in outer space, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos, and xAI founder Elon Musk.
As critics have pointed out, the logistical obstacles are comically immense, from concerns over economic viability to bandwidth limitations.
But, credit where credit is due, there’s now a proof of concept. With backing from AI chipmaker Nvidia, a startup called Starcloud launched a high-powered Nvidia GPU into outer space aboard a SpaceX rocket last month.
Since then, the company has fired up the chip and is running Google’s open-source large language model Gemma, as CNBC reports, marking the first time an AI has been run on a cutting-edge chip in space. The company also says it’s managed to train a small-scale LLM on the complete works of Shakespeare, resulting in an AI that can speak in Shakespearean English.
“Greetings, Earthlings! Or, as I prefer to think of you — a fascinating collection of blue and green,” the AI wrote in a message. “Let’s see what wonders this view of your world holds. I’m Gemma, and I’m here to observe, analyze, and perhaps, occasionally offer a slightly unsettlingly insightful commentary.”
Starcloud CEO Philip Johnston told CNBC that the concept is sound, and could considerably cut energy costs for AI companies.
“Anything you can do in a terrestrial data center, I’m expecting to be able to be done in space,” he said. “And the reason we would do it is purely because of the constraints we’re facing on energy terrestrially.”
“Running advanced AI from space solves the critical bottlenecks facing data centers on Earth,” he added, while also making strides on “environmental responsibility.”
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