If youre going around the world, you’re going through multiple connection points which will absolutely add up. Going from LA to NYC, it probably wouldn’t be.

And these data centers satellites are small. Stop thinking massive things, they’re going to be like the v3 starlink dishes but a little bigger. They’re going to launch multiple data center dishes per launch like how starlink v3 will be 60, not 1 or 2. SpaceX already knows how to radiate heat away on the satellites they launch, this isnt going to be an issue for them, they already do it today.

Edit: like size wise you need to be thinking like a server rack, plus the huge folding solar array/radiator for it. They already know how to make the folding solar panels as well. And the rack will probably be long and narrow so they can angle it best against the sun so it gets as least heat as possible from it, not a chubby thing with a lot of surface on all sides.

Edit: also land based routing isn’t direct increasing the distance likely substantially, potentially more than the up and down, the massive starlink constellation it will be more direct.

Latency around the world is faster in space too.

If the US military is doing something across the globe, satellite laser links will be faster than any ground based system.

They are designed to be maintenance free just like starlink. They’ll go up, and come back down every 5 or so years. They’ll constantly be iterating on them so new more powerful ones with any issues that existed resolved for the next batch.

No one is repairing starlinks in space.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he cancels all the contracts the first day possible after the IPO. He does have compute though, xAI built 2 huge data centres

You dont need to worry about land, power, red tape or NIMBY s in space which are big problems. The sun is always shining in a sun synchronous orbit, and space is plentiful. People think these are going to be massive megawatt things as well, but they arent, they’re going to be small satellites, so each one doesnt have as much heat to deal with as people think, and they know how to radiate heat away, they already do it on their satellites.

SpaceX also knows how to make relatively cheap satellites as demonstrated with Starlink where its a mass manufacturing line for them which brings costs down.

With starlink though people actually need the service and its worth paying for if you’re in an area that needs it. Its hard to say the same about all this AI stuff, so even if they can do it, we still haven’t seen that its profitable, that enough people want it, and that people wont eventually turn to a local AI if they do want it. So its possible, but its not solving a need as big as starlink is, so it could be an utter failure even if technically possible.

Personally I dont think its going to work because they wont get enough use to be profitable, not because the idea wont work or wouldn’t work if enough people wanted it.

Edit: also SpaceX has a proven track record of being able to launch satellites at a high cadence, so its just a matter of will starship be rapidly reusable. Starship has to be rapidly reusable for this work. If it turns out its only reusable after heavy refurbishment, that really messes with the economics of everything.

Better to start wasting the AI tokens and burn their AI budget with nothing to show for it.

That was a great read, and wild that all of that was possible.

And it has to be fast. If it takes too long people will leave before it gives results, and thats also expensive.

Also which one? They’ll pick the one that most fits what they want.

Thats actually cool that the numbers for that are out there. Thank you!

Their mobile chips are actually quite powerful, they might not be gaming beasts, but for simple laptop work they’d be very capable.

Apple could make a desktop OS for their phones that triggers when you connect it to a monitor with a USB C to HDMI cable like on Android, but if they did it well, itd just eat into laptop sales vs sell more phones.

But they could sell some more dongles/peripherals that way and possibly make bank.

Travelling? Don’t bring the laptop, just bring a small portable monitor and your phone.

Edit: they could even make a laptop shell you slide your phone into so you can get the whole laptop experience without paying for all the hardware in the phone a 2nd time.

Id say him vetoing it should be bad for him politically, but with him, that’s definitely not true.

I wonder what % of the world’s slave labor they have via their prison slaves. They already have a disproportionate amount of imprisoned people so its gotta be quite a lot of slaves.

Just like how grindr always seems to get overwhelmed whenever the GOP has a large convention

Honestly, if they did this instead of being the data collection, forced fed ads and manipulation machine that they are id think its great. But they’re going to be just as evil and now youre paying them which is stupid.

Awesome

My prediction: It’ll become the most used bill for fraud, drugs and money laundering!

I can’t wait for all the Office EU <–> MS365 tools Microsoft make that always make the Office EU software look bad on purpose

New Glenn wont really be competing with starship if they truly make it rapidly and fully reusable. Its gonna be a massive shift in access to space.

Until thats a proven capability though, then ya theyll be competing.

If starship works, New Glenn will likely only get launches as it’ll be imperative to still fund other space programs so there are backups and so they can improve and catch up.

Edit: and any non US country wanting to avoid a US launch partner will be avoiding both of them, so they wont compete that way either.

What do you mean, no?

https://www.top1000funds.com/asset_owner/public-investment-fund-pif/

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. It is among the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world and was created in 1971 for the purpose of investing funds on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia. The wealth fund has been controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler since 2015.

The government is going to own a large part if the merger happens.