Elon Musk on Space GPUs, AI, Optimus, and his manufacturing method
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What is the opening discussion about Space GPUs and their energy costs?
Cheeky Bind is back. This episode is a collab with Dorkesh Patel, whose podcast has really blown up in tech and I really enjoy it. We sat down with Elon Musk and as you can imagine, there was a lot to cover.
So are are there really three hours of questions? Or or has it Are you fucking serious? Yeah.
You don't think there's a lot to talk about, Elon? Holy book, man. I
mean it it's the most interesting point. All the storylines are kinda converging right now. So we'll we'll see how much we're almost like I planned it. Exactly.
That would never do such a thing. So as you know better than anybody else, uh the total cost of ownership of a data center, only ten to fifteen percent is energy. And that's the part you're presumably saving by moving this into space. Most of it's the GPUs. If they're in space, it's harder to service them or you can't service them. And so the depreciation cycle goes down on them. So like it's just it's just way more expensive to have the GPUs in space, pr presumably. What's the reason to put them in space? Um, well, the availability
of energy is the issue. Um so uh I mean if you look at at electrical output um outside of China, for everywhere outside of China it's more or less flat. It's very, you know, maybe a slight increase, but m but pretty close flat. China has a rapid increase in l and electrical output. But if you're putting data centers anywhere except China, where are you going to get your electricity? Um especially as you scale. Uh the output of chips is growing um pretty much exponentially, but the output of electricity is flat. So where how are you gonna turn the chips on?
Um you know
magical power sources? Magical electricity effects.
I mean you're famously a big you're you're famously a big fan of solar, one terawatt of solar power, so y with a twenty five percent capacity factor, like four terawatts of solar panels, it's like one percent of the land area of the United States. And that's like far in this you're in the singularity when we've got one terawatt of data centers, right? Um so what are you running out of exactly?
How far into the singularity are you though? You tell me. Yeah, exactly. So so th I think I think we'll we'll find we're in the singularity and like, oh okay, we've still got a long way to
go. But is this like a is the plan to like put it in the space after we've covered Nevada and solar panels? I think it's pretty hard to cover Nevada and solar panels. You have to get like permits from like the permits for that. Try getting the permits for that. So the space is really a regul it's really a regulatory play. It's like harder to b harder to build on land than it is in space. It's it's harder to
scale. um on the ground than it is to scale in space. But but also the the you you you're gonna get about five times the um effectiveness of solar panels in space versus the ground. And you don't need batteries. I almost wore my other shirt which says it's always sunny in space. Which it is. So um because Because you don't have a day-night cycle or uh seasonality, uh clouds, uh or an a or an atmosphere in space. Uh 'cause the atmosphere alone um w uh results in about a thirty percent uh lot loss of energy.
How does the conversation shift to the advantages of solar power in space?
Um so uh So you you're gonna for any any given uh solar panels can do a du about five times more uh powering space than on the ground. And you avoid the cost of having batteries to carry you through the night. Um so it's it's actually much cheaper to do in space. And I I my prediction is that Um, it will be by far the cheapest place to put uh AI will be space in thirty six months or less. Maybe thirty months. Thirty six months. Less than thirty six months.
Um, how do you service GPUs as they fail? Which happens quite often in training. Actually it it it
depends on how how how recent the GPUs uh are that have arrived. I mean, uh at this point we find our GPUs to be quite uh reliable. Um, this infant mortality, which you can obviously iron out on the ground. Um, so you can just run them on the ground um and confirm that you don't have infant mortality with with the GPUs.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the opening discussion about Space GPUs and their energy costs?
0:00–3:01
2
How does the conversation shift to the advantages of solar power in space?
3:01–6:55
3
Why do they say power availability is the main scaling bottleneck for AI on Earth?
6:55–27:24
4
What challenges and plans are mentioned for building semiconductor fabs and manufacturing robots?
27:24–1:24:00
5
Why does Elon say Optimus 3 can produce a million units per year and what limits its production curve?
1:24:00–1:45:46
6
How does the conversation shift to China’s cheap humanoids and the challenges of matching their bill‑of‑materials?
1:45:46–2:28:47
7
What led SpaceX to abandon carbon‑fiber and switch Starship’s primary structure to stainless steel?
2:28:47–2:44:10
8
How does Elon describe his management style, hiring philosophy, and the “limiting‑factor” approach as the companies scale?
2:44:10–2:46:00
Speakers
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