If xAI is a datacenter REIT, it is a special kind that has a promise that no other datacenter provider could dream of: LEO datacenters. As far-fetched as that may sound, the biggest profit center for SpaceX in my understanding was Starlink. xAI already has extremely high-bandwidth connections from Earth to LEO available. Connecting that to solar powered orbital datacenters seems doable in realistic timeframes, especially once Starship comes online and gives them a significant boost in launch capacity.

If that ends up being viable and profitable, there is no realistic competition for decades. In this view, xAI earning a reputation as a reliable AI hyperscaler is just another tactic in that strategy.

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martinky24 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You're hand waving the whole "data center" part away. Comms is one thing. That's probably 1% of the challenge.

	▲	zoogeny 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, but considering the size of the challenge it makes sense to figure out the parts that can be studied on the surface first. Challenges like procuring, challenges like setting up relationships with potential customers. You probably want to figure out everything you can so that when you move on to the hard part you aren't distracted by the rest. Consider the alternative. SpaceX figures out how to build the datacenter in space thing but fails at the rest. That would be an expensive mistake.