Opinion: Space AI computing deployment could become a major upside option for SpaceX's valuation, with orbital solutions costing less than 1/4 of ground-based GPU costs.

Mars Finance News, June 16: In the latest episode of the BG2 podcast, Fox and Brad Gerstner discussed the economics of deploying AI computing power into space, viewing it as a potential long-term option in SpaceX’s valuation. BG2 is a technology investment podcast hosted by Brad Gerstner, the founder of Altimeter, and Bill Gurley, a former general partner at Benchmark, and it is highly recognizable among Silicon Valley investors. Gerstner is the founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital; Andrew Fox (often nicknamed Foxy) is an analyst at Atreides Management.

Fox said that, based on his estimates, each Starship launch could correspond to about 5 megawatts of computing capacity. If further back-calculated, the capital expenditures to deploy relevant equipment into space could be about $5 billion per gigawatt. He compared this figure to on-the-ground data centers, where capital expenditures for switching equipment, generators, transformers, buildings, power acquisition, and cooling systems could reach $20 billion to $25 billion per gigawatt. Therefore, if an orbital computing power solution works, some non-GPU infrastructure costs could be clearly lower than on the ground.

Gerstner added from the perspective of the overall costs of building computing capacity: today, deploying 1 gigawatt of computing power on the ground might require about $60 billion, with about $35 billion going to GPUs and chips and about $25 billion going to land, buildings, power, and cooling. He believes these terrestrial components may face inflation pressure in the future, whereas in space, space, power, and cooling are nearly free in the economic model.

However, Fox also explicitly stated that orbital computing power is not a necessary condition for the validity of SpaceX’s IPO valuation. He believes this business is more like a significant upside potential rather than the core premise of the current valuation.