Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder and CEO of Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group, doesn’t seem too convinced by Elon Musk’s plan to put data centers in space. Son said the costs of orbital data centers would likely outweigh the benefits and that the AI race will be decided much closer to home, Bloomberg reports. “In the battle for AI, the next few years will be far more important than what might happen a decade or so from now,” said Son on Tuesday when asked at an investors event if he plans to send data centers into space. Son’s comments come just weeks after SpaceX finally hit Wall Street with a historic IPO that turned it into one of the most valuable companies in the world and made Musk the world’s first trillionaire overnight. However, SpaceX shares have already started to fluctuate after their huge debut. The stock briefly dipped below its opening-day price of $150 on Tuesday morning before rebounding.
‘He who strikes first wins’ Part of the reason SpaceX was able to pull off such a massive IPO is that the company is selling investors on a completely absurd future earnings potential. In its IPO filing, the company estimates it has a $28.5 trillion total addressable market, with roughly $26.5 trillion expected to come from AI alone.
