Amazon founder Jeff Bezos believes that within the next two decades, gigawatt-scale data centers will be built in space – and that they will eventually outperform those on Earth, Reuters reported. Speaking at Italian Tech Week in Turin, Bezos said that space-based facilities could take advantage of continuous solar energy, offering a sustainable and cost-efficient alternative to the increasingly power-hungry data centers driving the global AI boom.
“In space, there are no clouds, no rain, no weather,” said Jeff Bezos during a public discussion with John Elkann, chairman of Ferrari and Stellantis. “Because we have solar power there all the time, it will be preferable to build these enormous training clusters in space. We will be able to beat the cost of terrestrial data centers in the next couple of decades.”
As Reuters noted, major technology firms have been exploring the idea of orbiting data infrastructure as the Earth-based demand for power and water – especially to cool high-performance AI chips – continues to surge. Constant solar energy and the absence of atmospheric disruptions make space an appealing, if futuristic, proposition.
Jeff Bezos framed the vision as part of a broader effort to use space to enhance life on Earth, much like satellites already do for weather monitoring and communications. “The next step is data centers, then other kinds of manufacturing,” he said.
High Costs and Risks
Experts point out that technical and economic challenges remain steep. Maintaining and upgrading computing systems in orbit would require advances in automation, robotics, and launch economics. The high costs and risks associated with rocket launches could also slow progress toward commercially viable space data centers.
Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos likened the current AI boom to the early Internet period, which was characterized by both innovation and excessive speculation.
“We should be extremely optimistic that the societal and beneficial consequences of AI, like we had with the internet 25 years ago, are for real and here to stay,” he said, while cautioning against “bubbles and their bursting consequences.”
Despite those risks, Jeff Bezos expressed confidence that both AI and space-based computing will drive transformative benefits globally. “The advantages,” he said, “will be broadly diffused and go everywhere.”
