The Race to Bring Data Centers to Space -- WSJ

Dow Jones12-13

By Conor Grant

This is an edition of The Future of Everything newsletter, a look at how innovation and technology are transforming the way we live, work and play. If you're not subscribed, sign up here .

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have raced for years to build rockets and launch satellites. Now they are racing to take the trillion-dollar data-center boom into orbit.

Bezos' Blue Origin has had a team working for more than a year on technology needed for orbital AI data centers, and Musk's SpaceX plans to use an upgraded version of its Starlink satellites to host AI computing payloads, report Micah Maidenberg and Becky Peterson.

Proponents of space-based data centers believe they'll allow the AI industry to avoid Earthly headaches, such as securing the energy needed to train AI models. They imagine that satellites zipping through space will be able to tap the power of the sun to operate, and then beam back data.

How many satellites it will take to recreate the compute capacity of a one gigawatt data center, assuming 100-kilowatt satellites, according to Travis Beals, a Google executive working on an orbital data-center effort

Deploying satellites that provide significant AI computing capability will present difficult engineering hurdles and pose tough questions about the price of deploying swarms of the devices into orbit.

More on this topic:

   -- This is how Blue Origin plans to beat SpaceX to the moon. (Read) 
 
   -- Desperate for electricity, AI data centers are building their own power 
      plants. (Read) 
 
   -- Building nuclear power in the U.S. is tough. NASA wants to do it on the 
      moon. (Read)

🤔 Do you think orbital data centers will transform the AI industry? Why or why not? Send me your thoughts, questions and predictions at future@wsj.com (if you're reading this in your inbox, you can just hit reply).

More of What's Next: Bot Hackers; Disney's OpenAI Deal; Bad AI Gadgets

AI hackers are coming dangerously close to beating humans. In a Stanford University experiment, an AI bot called Artemis outperformed nine out of 10 human hackers in finding network vulnerabilities. Yet while the bot operated at a low cost, it also made numerous mistakes and missed an obvious bug.

Disney struck a deal to invest $1 billion in OpenAI and license its characters for AI generated short videos and images. The deal will let users of the Sora video platform create videos with 200 Disney, Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar characters. A selection of these videos will then be available to stream on Disney+.

AI gadgets are bad right now, but their promise is huge, writes Joanna Stern. The WSJ columnist tested out AI wearables including glasses, pendants and bracelets this year and found that most of them aren't worth the money...yet.

Israel and Ukraine are fusing old-school spycraft with cutting-edge technology, which is giving clandestine action an outsize impact on high-stakes conflicts. The transformation has been enabled by increasingly compact electronics, batteries and explosives.

Future Feedback

Last week, we reported on a real estate tycoon who is bringing in flying taxis to try to fix gridlock in Florida. Readers shared their thoughts on whether they'd travel in flying taxis:

   -- "I probably would ride in a flying taxi, but only after it had completed 
      several hundred flights without crashing. If there weren't an alternative, 
      I would of course lower that number -- but obviously there are several 
      very viable and existing alternatives." -- Benjamin Huberman, Florida 
 
   -- "I see this as a disaster waiting to happen. There are so many idiots 
      driving now while on their phones. Can you imagine if they were flying a 
      taxi? A slightly larger passenger capacity, coupled with a licensed 
      experienced pilot, might make these practical. But the idea that anyone 
      who can afford these vehicles will soon be taking off for busy 
      destinations is terrifying." -- Cheryl Morrell, Georgia 
 
   -- "Yes, absolutely! I'd even line up to be first to try this, which is 
      interesting because I have an immense fear of flying. The larger the 
      plane, the bigger my fear. So I guess a flying taxi feels safer to me 
      because it flies closer to the ground and it's small enough to survive a 
      crash. Certainly my response is far from rational." -- Sharyn Charnas, 
      California

(Responses have been condensed and edited.)

Elsewhere in the Future

   -- Is retail ready for the AI shopping shift? (The Guardian) 
 
   -- Solar geoengineering projects are getting serious. (MIT Technology 
      Review) 
 
   -- How the next big thing in carbon removal sank without a trace. (Wired)

About Us

Thanks for reading The Future of Everything. We cover the innovation and tech transforming the way we live, work and play. This newsletter was written by Conor Grant. Get in touch with us at future@wsj.com. Got a tip for us? Here's how to submit.

See more from The Future of Everything at wsj.com/future-of-everything.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 12, 2025 11:55 ET (16:55 GMT)

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The Race to Bring Data Centers to Space -- WSJ

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