I knew GCP was third banana but what is even happening?
Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers
191–200 of 1001 posts
Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers
#192Is there any data on whether Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, OpenAI etc are most cost efficient in getting datacenter compute online and operating it? I'd be interested in how large the range is here across company and region and specific data center and how it relates to companies like Hetzner if at all.
Well, Elon seems to take the fastest path possible to these DCs. One can envision a future where these get shut down for the severity of the pollution, not to mention being built and operated illegally [0].
[0] https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...
Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I hear space I think "that's the perfect location for a data center", since data centers are lightweight, small, require little power, don't need human intervention, have lifetimes measured in decades and don't have to reject heat. Since space easily satisfies these requirements, space is an ideal deployment location for data centers.
Yeah... What am I missing? Like why isn't this just laughed at when it's proposed?
It seems off at first glance but actually appears to work out if you do the math. You can model a solar panel as a flat, opaque rectangle. You can calculate power generation and equilibrium temperature for it based on surface area. If you require additional radiative surface area to achieve the desired equilibrium temperature you can place a flat triangle orthogonal to and behind the solar panel in its shadow.
Compute is "free" at that point because waste heat is coming out of the total energy flux which was already accounted for (because we modeled it as opaque).
Of course swapping out the equipment poses a bit of a challenge. The "helping hands" rate is entirely unaffordable and wait until you see this new DC's physical access policies. 0/10 would not rack with them again.
Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers
#194Is this admission that google’s proprietary chips etc. are not cutting it? Why would you need a bunch of nvidia GPUs if you have your own silicon? (AFAIK they have their own for both inference and training do they not?)
Or it’s paying to make sure competition can’t buy said compute. Also isn’t Google an investor in SpaceX anyways?
Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers
#195Is this admission that google’s proprietary chips etc. are not cutting it? Why would you need a bunch of nvidia GPUs if you have your own silicon? (AFAIK they have their own for both inference and training do they not?)
Not necessarily, just that they don't have as many as they can make use of, and that xAI can't make more valuable use of them than renting them out.
Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their satellite internet business is the only thing which makes them money, which is enabled by their orbital launch business which is as of right now not profitable and I have no idea of if it ever will be but without it they would not be able to launch enough satellites. Their stupidity with AI and buying X mostly seems to be about scamming investors to make Musk even richer. Like this particular deal is just them…
Launch isn't profitable simply because ongoing Starship R&D is eating into it. A lot of opex, capex, and pre-revenue. If they start running Starship anywhere near the way they do Falcon 9, it'll flip into profits. A lot of big bets SpaceX made ride on Starship coming online. I'm honestly surprised Starlink is already so profitable without it. One of their big named bets includes: orbital datacenters. Which puts this…
Orbital datacenters sound like a dangerous bet. I couldn't think of a worse place for a lot of delecate electronics.
Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is all just the typical Elon hate. What's desperate about getting paid $920,000,000 per month? If that's desperation, I'd love to start groveling more! Given extreme supply constraints, it's very unlikely that Google or Anthropic will just suddenly cancel right after the IPO unless their own demand collapses. And even if this were true, what value would that provide Musk? Could you imagine if your newly public c…
I have no love or hate for Elon Musk. I wish him luck with his space endeavours. What's desperate is announcing a temporary (allegedly) doubling of revenues days before an IPO that has been criticised for being overpriced at 93 times sales. These data centers were supposed to serve xAI. Now suddenly they get rented out to others. Why the sudden change of plans? It's either an emergency accounting gimmick or the effec…
It’s a repurposing of xAI to be a commodity service provider during a crunch for that commodity. It would be dumb if xAI had any quality or market traction, but they have neither, so it’s actually a rational fallback. But it writes off any high margin future in favor of low margin scale.
And once the compute crunch is over, they’ll have a lot of overprovisioned data centers with no business to soak up the capacity.
Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Space-based datacenters simply won't work. That people are talking about them shows Musk is the greatest snake oil salesman the world has ever seen.
You think the military can’t or won’t dump billions into this to make killing people with drones more effective? It’s a engineering challenge not impossible.
There are asteroids with concentrations of precious metals more valuable than earth's entire economy. Why don't we just send up spaceships to mine them and send the haul back to earth? What country would say no to free money?
After all, it's just an engineering challenge, not impossible.
Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers
#199Google renting infra from xAI, I did not see that coming. My understanding of what computers are doing, what companies are doing and what governments are doing seems to be getting worse day by day.
> Google renting infra from xAI, I did not see that coming.
Actually that seems to be fairly logical? Hardware is what xAI has, and it's in great demand. So sell what makes you money. The real story here is that that xAI hardware is going to be running Gemini and not Grok. Which is to say: Grok basically failed as a frontier AI and they need to pivot to a business model which makes money.
Obviously not everything Musk did was wrong. xAI bought a ton of compute when it was possible to get it. But the product they were going to build with it failed and so now they're deciding to be a landlord.
This IPO is just insane. No way do you justify a $trillion+ valuation based on what amounts to a bunch of commoditized rent seeking endeavors. Datacenters are buildings and chips, and everyone can build those. Starlink is just an ISP with lots of competition at scale (they have the high bandwidth mobile market cornered, but that's a very small market!). Mars is at best a grift on public funding. Even satellite launch services are commoditized and competetive these days.
Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers
#200A huge chunk of SoaceX value in their filing is attributed to their AI technology (aka Grok). I believe it’s 90% or more… Now, it seems they’re leasing the infrastructure required for Grok to scale to Anthropic and Google. I wonder how that math works…