Elon Musk on data centers in orbit: "SpaceX will be doing this" (arstechnica.com)

Elon Musk signaled that SpaceX intends to pursue space-based data centers by “simply scaling up Starlink V3 satellites,” which incorporate high-speed inter-satellite laser links, saying on X that “SpaceX will be doing this.” His comment follows growing industry interest — startups like Starcloud, Eric Schmidt’s acquisition of Relativity Space, and Jeff Bezos’ prediction of gigawatt-scale orbital data centers within 10–20 years — and builds on prior reporting about autonomous assembly as a means to construct large structures in orbit. The endorsement matters because SpaceX already operates the most extensive commercial space infrastructure and has proven Starlink can deliver profitable, high-throughput connectivity at scale. Technically, proponents argue orbital data centers could exploit abundant solar power and avoid terrestrial environmental constraints, while leveraging high-speed laser mesh networking and on-orbit assembly to scale compute capacity. Critics counter that launch economics, radiation hardening, thermal management, latency trade-offs, and the autonomous manufacturing complexity still make the concept economically and technically challenging. Musk’s backing, however, raises the profile of these engineering problems and could accelerate investment and R&D into orbital power, modular compute hardware, and laser-linked networking for off-world data infrastructure.