Post by Andreessen Horowitz

Elon Musk's bet: in a few years, the most economically compelling place to put AI data centers will be space. Energy, barely growing outside of China while demand for AI compute grows exponentially, is what limits AI's expansion. Solar panels in orbit deliver 4–10x more power than the same panels on Earth because there's no atmosphere, no day-night cycle, no clouds, and no seasons. The numbers required to get there, per SpaceX's own projections: 1 billion Tesla Optimus robots to do the work. 10 million tons of mass per year launched into orbit. 1+ terawatt of solar power. For context on what that lift capacity requires: A kilogram of cargo to orbit cost roughly $54,000 on the Space Shuttle. Starship is designed to bring that down to $100–500 per kilogram. In five years, Musk projects SpaceX will be launching more AI compute to orbit per year than the cumulative installed base on Earth. SpaceX's own IPO filing projects AI to be its largest future market, by far. Read the full piece by Marc Andreessen & Michael McGuiness: https://lnkd.in/es2XzpME