Jeff Bezos: Why Space Could be the Future of AI Data Centres

The worldwide struggle to power AI is now pushing technology companies to look beyond Earth. 

Jeff Bezos, Founder and Executive Chair of Amazon, tells an audience in Turin that gigawatt-scale data centres will be built in space within the next 10 to 20 years – and that they’ll eventually outperform anything we can build on the ground.

Is it possible that data centres in space could be the future of powering AI demand? Jeff explains how it could be.

Why space is being considered as a possibility for future AI infrastructure 

Speaking at Italian Tech Week, Jeff lays out his vision during a fireside chat with John Elkann, who chairs both Ferrari and Stellantis.

“One of the things that’s going to happen next – is we’re going to start building these giant gigawatt data centres in space,” Jeff says.

To put that in perspective, a gigawatt is one billion watts of power, roughly what a large nuclear power plant could produce.

It is now a global problem that the expansion of data centres is driving electricity consumption sharply higher, while requiring huge amounts of water to cool the servers processing and storing data. 

This means as companies train ever-larger AI models and expand cloud computing services, the energy constraints of keeping everything running on Earth are becoming harder to ignore.

How round-the-clock solar power could be the key

What makes space attractive, Jeff argues, is access to energy that Earth-based facilities simply can’t match. 

Solar panels orbiting the planet can generate electricity continuously, dodging the interruptions caused by night-time and weather that hamper ground-based solar farms.

“These giant training clusters, those will be better built in space, because we have solar power there, 24/7. There are no clouds and no rain, no weather,” he says. 

Those training clusters are groups of interconnected computers used to train AI models, a process that devours computing power and energy.

That constant energy supply could make space-based operations cheaper to run than terrestrial facilities relying on grid power or intermittent renewable sources.

“We will be able to beat the cost of terrestrial data centres in space in the next couple of decades,” Jeff says.

The role of satellites

Jeff frames the move as part of an established pattern where orbital infrastructure ends up supporting life on Earth. 

Weather satellites already provide the data that makes accurate forecasting possible, while communication satellites enable global telecommunications and internet services.

“It already has happened with weather satellites. It has already happened with communication satellites. The next step is going to be data centres and then other kinds of manufacturing,” he says.

However, the timeline he’s suggesting shows worrying obstacles.

Most obviously, maintenance is tricky when it’s not possible to simply send an engineer round to fix things. 

Upgrading hardware means launching components on rockets, where costs remain substantial despite efforts by SpaceX and Blue Origin, which Jeff also founded, to bring prices down through reusable technology – and failed launches remain a genuine risk that could destroy expensive equipment.

As AI systems keep growing in scale and energy appetite, companies face mounting pressure to find power sources that won’t strain electricity grids or pile on carbon emissions.

Could space be the answer?

“It’s hard to know exactly when, it’s 10 plus years – and I bet it’s not more than 20 years,” Jeff says.