Philip Johnston

This time next week, I will be at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, nervously awaiting the launch of our first spacecraft.

Much about that setting will be different from this one, but there are a few things that will remain the same.

For example, like now, in a week's time, I will also be hoping not to crash and burn.

And like now, in a week's time, I will again be wearing my same lucky underpants.

That's not a joke.

So what about the spacecraft next week makes it so special that it warrants a rare second weekly appearance of said undergarment?

It's because it will be the first time that anybody has tried to launch an AI data center to space.

More specifically, we will be the first to launch the NVIDIA H100 chip to space, which is about 100 times more powerful GPU or AI compute than has ever been in space before.

In fact, this spacecraft is the first step in a much larger vision to build almost all data centers in space.

And today I will make the case for this idea.

The idea that the abundant energy and cold temperatures in space will soon mean that it makes much more sense to build data centers in space than it does to build them on Earth.

But first, why do we need more data centers?

Well, there's both a carrot and a stick.

The carrot is the promise of AI.

So that's things like new treatments for cancer, self-driving cars, a super intelligent companion in everybody's pocket.

In order to realize the promise of AI, we will need many more new data centers and many more new energy projects to power them.

So that's the carrot, but there is also a stick which people don't like to talk about as frequently, and that is the very real risk in being left behind by competitor nations.

This comes with very, very real national security implications for the US.

So we know we need more data centers.

But why not just carry on building them on Earth as we have been?