Jeff Bezos Leaks Facts, Giant AI Data Center Will 'Move' To Space

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at the Italian Tech Week event in Turin (photo: x @mcmiller00)

JAKARTA - Amazon founder Jeff Bezos predicts on Friday October 3, that gigawatt-scale data centers will be built in space in the next 10 to 20 years. The continuous availability of solar energy will ultimately outperform Earth-based data centers.

Speaking at Italian Tech Week in Turin, Bezos also compared a spike in artificial intelligence (AI) to an internet boom in the early 2000s, while encouraging optimism despite the risk of speculative bubbles.

The concept of an orbit data center has attracted the attention of tech giants as data centers on Earth have prompted increased demand for electricity and water to cool their servers.

"This giant training group will be better built in space, because we have solar power there, 24/7. No clouds, no rain, no weather," Bezos said in a public conversation with Ferrari and Stellantis chairman John Elkann.

"We will be able to beat the cost of ground data centers in space in the coming decades," he said.

Bezos said shifting to space infrastructure is part of a broader trend of using space to improve life on Earth.

"It has happened with weather and communication satellites," he said. "The next step is the data center, then various other types of manufacturing."

Organizing data centers in space has its own challenges, including maintenance difficulties and upgrading, as well as rocket launch costs, plus the risk of launch failure.

Amazon's executive chief said the AI wave had similarities to the dot-com era, when the big hype was followed by destruction.

"We must be very optimistic that the social consequences and benefits of AI, as we experienced with the internet 25 years ago, are real and will survive," he said.

"It is important to separate potential bubbles and the consequences of their possible or non-occurrence from the real reality," Bezos said, adding that the benefits of AI are expected to "are widespread and will be evenly distributed everywhere".