- Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins says he’s already researching how to send data centers to space
- OpenAI’s Sam Altman sees it as a “pipe dream”, Elon Musk is optimistic
- Space-bound data centers would solve many of the current problems
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins has revealed that his company executives are already discussing plans to put data centers in space.
Robbins clearly supports the idea, noting that space could remove some of Earth’s most important constraints such as power, cooling and land availability. Abundant solar power and fewer community objections are among the highlights (although a different type of objection would likely occur).
And Robbins isn’t the only data center influencer who believes this: “Sam Altman is someone who says, ‘I don’t think they should be in their backyards,'” he told Nilay Patel. The edge.
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Cisco is actively exploring putting data centers in space
While Altman may be skeptical of locating data centers in space, SpaceX’s Elon Musk is a big supporter. Asked whether he would believe Altman, who claims space-bound data centers are a “pipe dream,” or Elon Musk, Robbins said, “I wouldn’t bet against Elon.”
These campuses are generally seen as noisy, energy-intensive operations that are particularly unpopular locally. Hyperscalers are facing increasing public opposition and concerns about environmental impacts, but increasing use is a counterintuitive trend that requires ongoing build-out.
However, Cisco is still figuring out some of the technical challenges related to temperature, atmospheric conditions and launch logistics.
There is also a growing demand for data sovereignty, and it is unclear at best how space-located data centers would play into this with infrastructure designs shifting from global systems to localized deployments.
As for the next steps, there are clearly many of them. “We’re in the early stages of just making sure that the atmospheric issues, the temperatures, all of those things are taken into account,” the CEO said, noting, “we don’t even know everything we need to do yet.”
“Absolutely,” Robbins concluded when asked if we should put data centers in space.
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