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xAI joins SpaceX

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Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#771

Post by fouc »

tw04 wrote: post #515
reisse wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If elon were working for me, I would have fired him for having never delivered on any of his projects. Never? For the sheer amount of moonshot bets he's doing, his track record would make any VC jealous. Zip2, PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, Grok/xAI.

>Zip2 I guess props to scamming Compaq into making a large investment that didn't pan out. He did personally make money so I guess win for him. >In an effort to woo investors, Elon Musk built a large casing around a standard computer to give the impression that Zip2 was powered by a supercomputer. >PayPal Huh? He didn't found Paypal, his company was acquired by Paypal. You might as well give him credit for eBay while…

note the post you're replying to said "track record" not "founded"

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#772

Post by int0x29 »

TheBlight wrote: post #499
taurath wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t even have a habitable structure in space when the ISS falls, there is no world in which space datacenters are a thing in the next 10, I’d argue even 30 years. People really need to ground themselves in reality. Edit: okay Tiangong - but that is not a data center.

Ok then short SpaceX stock when it IPOs.

“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” - John Maynard Keynes

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#773

Post by duped »

brandonlovesked wrote: post #281
FloorEgg wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting aside the possibility it's window dressing for a financial bailout, there would be two ways compute in space makes sense: 1) new technology improves vacuum heat radiation efficiency 2) new technology reduces waste heat generation from compute All the takes I've seen have been focused on #1, but I'm starting to wonder about #2... Specifically spintronics and photonic chips.

If you solve 2, heat dissipation goes away on earth too, so what’s the advantage of space

This is true for all of Elon's space ambition, fwiw.

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#774

Post by fouc »

stevenjgarner wrote: post #231
sillysaurusx wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is xAI Twitter? I thought they were separate companies, but honestly I don’t know anymore.

Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI (x.ai = grok), officially acquired X Corp. (the parent company of the social media platform X or x.com, formerly Twitter/x.com) in an all-stock deal. Both now operate under a unified holding entity, frequently referred to in corporate filings as X.AI Holdings Corp. (or simply xAI). Now SpaceX has moved to acquire or merge with xAI. This effectively brings the social media data from x.com,…

the X super-conglomerate

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#775

Post by kristjansson »

alangibson wrote: post #89

Either this is a straight up con, or Musk found a glitch in physics. It's extremely difficult to keep things cold in space.

The physical constraints aren’t insane for black body radiators. The engineering to run radiators at 90C in space OTOH…

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#776

Post by typ »

esseph wrote: post #582
rainsford wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also shouldn't overlook the fact that the proposal entirely glosses over the implication of the alternative benefits we might realize if humanity achieved the incredible engineering and technical capacity necessary to make this version of space AI happen. Think about it. Elon conjures up a vision of the future where we've managed to increase our solar cell manufacturing capacity by two whole orders of magnitude an…

This is such a hypebeast paragraph. Datacenters in space are a TERRIBLE idea. Figure out how to get rid of the waste heat and get back to me.

It makes sense to target a higher operating temperature, like 375K. At some point, the energy budget would reach an equilibrium. The Earth constantly absorbs solar energy and also dissipates the heat only by radiative cooling. But the equilibrium temperature of the Earth is still kind of cool.

I guess the trick lies in the operating temperature and the geometry of the satellites.

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#777

Post by fouc »

ralfd wrote: post #410
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's clearly rhetorical hyperbole happening there. But assuming that thermal rejection is good in space, & launch costs continue falling, as earth-based data centers become power/grid-constrained, there is a viable path for space power gen. The craziest part of those statements is "100 kW per ton." IDK what math he is doing there or future assumptions, but today we can't even sniff at 10 kW per ton. iROSA [1] on t…

The company lists their ISS solar panels as 28 kW for 331 kg, which comes pretty near to 100 W/kg. Company website: https://rdw.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/redwire-roll-out-... And their Opal configuration beats the metric: 5.3 kW for 42.7 kg.

Okay so that works out to 124 kW/ton for the opal config.

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#778

Post by einrealist »

Buttons840 wrote: post #50

SpaceX is too big to fail. It's important for national security. I wonder if Elon wants to tangle all his businesses into SpaceX so they are all kept afloat by SpaceX's importance.

Why is it too big to fail? SpaceX can be dissected, parts be sold to the government or the competition.

It's too big to fail for Musk, because it is one source of his money, in large paid by the US tax payer.

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#779

Post by [deleted] »

darth_avocado wrote: post #222
alangibson wrote: post #89

Either this is a straight up con, or Musk found a glitch in physics. It's extremely difficult to keep things cold in space.

He buys twitter at an inflated valuation. Runs it to the ground to a much lower valuation of $9B. [1] Then, his company Xai buys Twitter at a $33B, inflating the valuation up. Then SpaceX merges with Xai for no particular reason, but is expected to IPO at a $1T+ in the upcoming years. [3] I’m not that smart, but if I were, I would be thinking this is an extended way to move the losses from the Twitter purchase on to…

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