"Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX and his artificial intelligence start-up xAI are reportedly mulling a merger, a move that would bring SpaceX's rockets and its satellite Internet subsidiary Starlink under a single umbrella with xAIwhich oversees the social media platform X and the chatbot Grok. The two wings of Musk's sprawling tech empire could merge ahead of a plan to take SpaceX public later this year, according to Reuters, which cited an anonymous source and recent company filings."
"A merger with xAI could boost Musk's plan to use SpaceX's still-in-development Starship rocket to launch orbital AI data centers, experts have speculated. Musk and other AI leaders are increasingly bullish on space as an answer to all the problems with data centers: Though costly to build and expensive to power, increasingly sprawling data centers are central to many AI company's growth strategies. If the demand for AI continues to grow, earthbound data centersand power suppliesmay not be able to keep up."
SpaceX and xAI are considering a merger that would unite SpaceX's rockets and satellite Internet subsidiary Starlink with xAI's holdings, including X and the chatbot Grok. The merger could precede plans to take SpaceX public later this year, with an initial public offering potentially valuing the company at about $1.5 trillion. The combined company could support plans to use the Starship rocket to launch orbital AI data centers. Orbital data centers could access abundant solar energy, addressing power and scaling limits of terrestrial data centers, though hardware and other constraints would remain. SpaceX and xAI did not immediately comment.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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