Sam Altman dismissed the idea of putting data centers in space as “ridiculous” during a live interview in New Delhi, pushing back on the current practicality of an orbital-compute push linked to Elon Musk’s companies. Altman said the concept could make sense someday, but argued launch costs and the difficulty of repairing chips in orbit make it unlikely to matter at scale this decade.
His remarks landed as SpaceX has outlined an orbital data center concept in a recent FCC filing. The proposal describes a constellation of up to one million satellites operating between roughly 500 and 2,000 kilometers, using orbits designed to maximize time in sunlight for solar power generation. The plan leans on optical links between satellites and Starlink for relaying data to the ground, with Ka-band positioned mainly as a backup channel that would require licensing.
In the same New Delhi session, Altman emphasized that compute supply and energy are the real bottlenecks for frontier AI, arguing the infrastructure buildout ahead will be unprecedented and will require close coordination between governments and technology firms.
