SoftBank’s CEO isn’t the only one with questions about Elon Musk’s orbital data center hype

软银CEO并非唯一质疑埃隆·马斯克“轨道数据中心”炒作的人

Not everyone is buying Elon Musk’s vision for orbital data centers. Masayoshi Son, the founder and CEO of Softbank, argued at a recent shareholder meeting that building data centers in space won’t do much to cut costs and will take too long when “in the battle for AI, the next few years will be far more important than what might happen a decade or so from now.” 并非所有人都买账埃隆·马斯克关于轨道数据中心的愿景。软银创始人兼CEO孙正义在最近的一次股东大会上指出，在太空中建设数据中心对于削减成本并无太大帮助，且耗时过长。他认为，“在人工智能的竞争中，未来几年远比十年后可能发生的事情重要得多。”

On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed Son’s remarks as part of a broader discussion that included OpenAI’s plans for custom chips, chipmaker Groq’s new $650 million funding, and much more. Kirsten noted that it’s “very ironic” that Son is playing the skeptic here, given SoftBank’s “long history of wild bets.” Sean, meanwhile, said that when Musk talks about “making a constellation of satellites — satellites that need to be replaced every few years as well — to make up an ‘orbital data center,’” he’s just “guaranteeing that much more business” for SpaceX. 在TechCrunch的《Equity》播客最新一期节目中，Kirsten Korosec、Sean O’Kane和我讨论了孙正义的言论，这也是我们更广泛讨论的一部分，内容还涵盖了OpenAI的定制芯片计划、芯片制造商Groq获得6.5亿美元新融资等话题。Kirsten指出，考虑到软银“长期以来疯狂押注”的历史，由孙正义来扮演怀疑论者角色显得“非常讽刺”。与此同时，Sean表示，当马斯克谈论“建立卫星星座——这些卫星每隔几年就需要更换——来组成一个‘轨道数据中心’”时，他实际上只是在为SpaceX“确保更多的业务量”。

Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. 以下是我们对话的节选，为篇幅和清晰度进行了编辑。

Sean O’Kane: Listen, neo-clouds are the new oil, and everybody who wants to make money is pivoting to a neo-cloud. I’m proud to announce that TechCrunch is now a neo-cloud, give us all your money. I mean, this is the thing you do. It seems like there are so many players that are compute constrained, so anybody who has a shot at being able to lease out that compute is taking it, whether that’s Groq, a company that was semi-hollowed out by Nvidia, or Allbirds, which went into bankruptcy and emerged from it as a new neo-cloud provider instead of selling shoes — Tim Fernholz did an interview with the new CEO of that new effort that I would definitely recommend people go read. Sean O’Kane： 听着，“新云”（neo-clouds）就是新的石油，每个想赚钱的人都在转向“新云”。我很自豪地宣布TechCrunch现在也是一家“新云”公司，把你们的钱都投给我们吧。我的意思是，这就是大家都在做的事。似乎有太多的参与者受到算力限制，所以任何有机会出租算力的人都在抓住机会，无论是被英伟达“掏空”了一部分的Groq，还是破产后重组为“新云”提供商而非卖鞋的Allbirds——Tim Fernholz对该新业务的CEO做了一次采访，我强烈建议大家去读一读。

Or whether you’re SpaceX, where your idea was: I’m gonna build an AI platform that’s gonna have an addressable market the size of U.S. GDP, but before we get there, we’ll just rent out our compute. And we saw this continue to happen with SpaceX, where it’s not as big as the deals that they’ve struck with Google or Anthropic, but they just signed another deal, [their] first post IPO deal, to rent out compute to another smaller player. They’re continuing down that road. You know, I can see this being a business for Groq in the near term. The question with all of these is how durable is it in the long term. 又或者是SpaceX，他们的想法是：我要建立一个人工智能平台，其潜在市场规模相当于美国GDP，但在实现这一目标之前，我们先出租算力。我们看到SpaceX一直在这样做，虽然规模不如他们与谷歌或Anthropic达成的交易，但他们刚刚签署了另一份协议，这是他们（潜在）IPO后的第一笔交易，将算力出租给另一家规模较小的参与者。他们正在沿着这条路走下去。你知道，我认为这在短期内对Groq来说是一项业务。但所有这些问题的关键在于，从长远来看，这种模式能持续多久。

Anthony Ha: If we’re talking about SpaceX and their AI business and data center business, we also have to talk about these comments that Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, made recently, where he basically said: What is the point of data centers in space? Which is a question we’ve asked on this show. And it speaks to, again, this sense in the industry of being really, really compute constrained — they need to build as many data centers as possible, [and] there’s all kinds of reasons why that is proving to be challenging here on Earth, so maybe space is the answer. But I think Son makes some pretty fair points about: All this stuff we’re talking about, even if it all works — and the costs are going to be very, very serious to make it work — this is not happening for years and years and years, so this is not a solution to any immediate problem, as far the current need for data centers goes. Anthony Ha： 如果我们谈论SpaceX及其人工智能和数据中心业务，我们也必须谈谈软银CEO孙正义最近发表的评论，他基本上说：在太空中建立数据中心有什么意义？这也是我们在节目中提出的问题。这再次反映了行业内一种非常严重的算力受限感——他们需要尽可能多地建造数据中心，而由于在地球上建造面临各种挑战，所以太空或许是答案。但我认为孙正义提出了一些非常中肯的观点：我们谈论的所有这些事情，即使最终都能实现——而且实现它们的成本将非常非常高昂——在未来很多年内都不会发生，因此就目前对数据中心的需求而言，这并不能解决任何紧迫的问题。

Kirsten Korosec: I just want to point out that SoftBank has a long history of making wild bets. I think it says something when Son comes up and asks the question that a lot of people have asked. I mean, there are a lot of VCs and founders [who] have been swept up into the idea of orbital data centers and it seems like suddenly everyone’s on board. When just a couple of years ago, I think, if someone had mentioned that, it would get slapped down a little bit. So I do think it’s an important part of the process that someone who has a pretty high profile is asking that question. But it is very ironic to me that he is the one asking it, because if you look at his pitch deck, they’ve thrown a lot of money at some pretty bold ideas. Kirsten Korosec： 我想指出的是，软银有着长期疯狂押注的历史。当孙正义站出来提出许多人都在问的问题时，这本身就说明了一些问题。我的意思是，有很多风投和创始人都被“轨道数据中心”的概念所吸引，似乎每个人突然都赞同了。而就在几年前，如果有人提到这一点，我想他会遭到一些嘲讽。所以我确实认为，由一位知名度很高的人提出这个问题，是整个过程中的重要一环。但由他来问这个问题对我来说非常讽刺，因为如果你看看他的投资组合，他们已经在一些非常大胆的想法上投入了巨额资金。

Sean: WeWork! Listen, we’re going to be saying this for a lot over the next couple years. The idea of putting these things in space is going to be an interesting engineering challenge and certainly an interesting economic challenge. Anthony, what you said is definitely right to a certain extent. Elon Musk is a person who hates red tape and you know, there are no NIMBYs in space so of course he’s going to try and do that. To me, it comes down to: The business as it stands now for SpaceX, especially its launch business, is just overwhelmingly reliant on Starlink. The reason that they are 80 or 90% of the launch market globally is not just because they’ve done all these things that are better than pretty much every other launch provider around the globe, it’s also because they have Starlink that is driving up that number. If you remove Starlink from the equation, they would be closer to — I don’t know, maybe 20% or 30% of the launch market, or 40%, but it certainly wouldn’t be 90%. And when you talk about making a constellation of satellites — satellites that need to be replaced every few years as well — to make up an “orbital data center,” quote unquote, you’re just guaranteeing that much more business for your launch business. And I just can’t stop myself from coming back to that point. Sean： WeWork就是个例子！听着，在接下来的几年里，我们会经常提到这一点。把这些东西放到太空中的想法将是一个有趣的工程挑战，当然也是一个有趣的经济挑战。Anthony，你说的在一定程度上绝对正确。埃隆·马斯克是一个讨厌繁文缛节的人，你知道，太空中没有“邻避效应”（NIMBYs），所以他当然会尝试这样做。对我来说，归根结底是：SpaceX目前的业务，尤其是其发射业务，在很大程度上依赖于星链（Starlink）。他们占据全球发射市场80%或90%份额的原因，不仅是因为他们做得比全球几乎所有其他发射供应商都好，还因为他们有星链在推高这个数字。如果你把星链从这个等式中剔除，他们的市场份额可能更接近——我不知道，也许是20%或30%，或者40%，但绝对不会是90%。当你谈论建立一个卫星星座——这些卫星每隔几年也需要更换——来组成一个所谓的“轨道数据中心”时，你实际上只是在为你的发射业务确保更多的订单。我无法停止回到这一点。

Kirsten: I want to really quickly say that [SpaceX’s] other big business is renting out their compute, by the way. So back to the chip conversation. We’ve come full circle. Kirsten： 顺便说一下，我想快速补充一点，SpaceX的另一项大业务就是出租他们的算力。所以我们又回到了芯片的话题。我们绕了一圈又回来了。

Anthony: One of the other themes that may run through this episode is this idea of talking your own book. This is not a new phenomenon. Executives at tech companies, or any other company, what they’re predicting for the future is ultimately the future that is going to be advantageous to their business. But I think it is something that’s just always worth remembering when we’re having these conversations about big AI companies, because it is this moment of incredible… Anthony： 本期节目可能贯穿的另一个主题是“兜售自己的观点”（talking your own book）。这不是什么新鲜事。科技公司或其他任何公司的高管，他们对未来的预测，最终都是对他们业务有利的未来。但我认为，当我们讨论这些大型人工智能公司时，这一点总是值得铭记的，因为现在正处于一个令人难以置信的时刻……