Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Billionaires want data centers everywhere, including space As part of the announcement, Musk discusses the need for a new constellation of satellites designed for AI compute: My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space. This cost-efficiency alone will enable innovative companies to forge ahead in training their AI models and processing data at unprecedented speeds and scales, accelerating breakthroughs in our understanding of physics and invention of technologies to benefit humanity. This new constellation will build upon the well-established space sustainability design and operational strategies, including end-of-life disposal, that have proven successful for SpaceX’s existing broadband satellite systems. He also claims that: The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a reality will fund and enable self-growing bases on the Moon, an entire civilization on Mars and ultimately expansion to the Universe. The merger follows SpaceX’s filing with the FCC last week to get approval to launch a constellation of as many as 1 million data center satellites orbiting Earth. The deal also brings SpaceX and X, which is under intense scrutiny and an investigation in the EU because of the nonconsensual sexualized deepfakes generated by Grok, into one company. The combined company of SpaceX and xAI has a valuation of $1.25 trillion, and SpaceX still plans to IPO later this year, Bloomberg reports. SpaceX earned about $8 billion in profit last year, according to Reuters. The deal between SpaceX and xAI was completed on Monday, CNBC says. Last week, Reuters and Bloomberg reported that the potential deal was on the table, with Bloomberg also reporting that SpaceX was “considering” merging with Tesla, which is also led by Musk. As part of its earnings reported last week, Tesla disclosed that it would be investing $2 billion in xAI. Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates. Jay Peters