AI is running out of power. Space won’t be an escape hatch for decades

Welcome to Eye on AI, with AI reporter Sharon Goldman. In this edition: Data centers in space are feasible, but not ready for launch…Accenture links promotions to AI logins…AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li’s startup World Labs raises $1 Billion. Nvidia’s deal with Meta signals a new era in computing power.

The AI industry is on a power trip—literally–and it’s getting desperate. Data centers already account for roughly 4% of U.S. electricity use, a share expected to more than double by 2030 as running and training AI models increasingly require gigawatts of power. Analysts project global data-center power demand could rise as much as 165% by the end of the decade, even as new generation and transmission infrastructure lag years behind need. In response, hyperscalers are scrambling—cutting deals to build their own gas plants, exploring small nuclear reactors, and searching for power wherever they can find it.

Against that backdrop, it’s not surprising that some of the industry’s biggest players are starting to look to outer space for a solution. 

In a feature story published this morning, I dig into how—even as tech companies are on track to spend more than $5 trillion globally on Earth-based AI data centers by the end of the decade—Elon Musk is arguing the future of AI computing power lies in space, powered by solar energy. Musk has suggested that the economics and engineering could align within just a few years, even predicting that more AI computing capacity could be in orbit than on Earth within five.

The idea of orbital space centers itself isn’t new. As far back as 2015, Fortune was already asking the question: What if we put servers in space?

What’s changed is the urgency. Today’s power crunch has pushed the concept back into serious conversation, with startups like Starcloud getting attention and Big Tech leaders like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos all turning their attention to the possibilities of launching data centers into orbit. 

However, while Musk and other bulls argue that space-based AI computing could become cost-effective relatively quickly, many experts say anything approaching meaningful scale remains decades away. Constraints around power generation, heat dissipation, launch logistics, and........

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