Masayoshi Son pours cold water on Musk: Space data centers are of little significance. The computing power of the earth determines the AI ​​competition.

On June 23, Bloomberg reported that although Elon Musk advocates building data centers in space, SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son said that building data centers in space makes little sense and that the AI ​​race will ultimately be decided by computing power on Earth.

Masayoshi Son

The main advantage of building data centers in space is the ability to significantly reduce power costs, Son said at SoftBank's mobile unit annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday.But compared with the cost of hardware such as chips, electricity expenses only account for a small part of data center operating costs.

He added that any savings in power costs would come at the expense of higher space transportation costs, maintenance costs and communications delays.

When asked by SoftBank shareholders whether SoftBank Group also plans to promote a grand space data center plan similar to Musk's, Son Masayoshi said: "In the AI ​​race, the importance of the next few years far exceeds what may happen in about ten years."

Masayoshi Son said that SoftBank will focus on building "powerful" data center capabilities on the earth and "strike first to gain strength."