Building the First Data Centers in Space

Y CombinatorAugust 5, 202636m

Topics54

Booking Launches First0:00 Episode Introduction0:31 Why Data Centers in Space1:03 Origin of the Idea1:30 Thinking About Future Capacity2:01 Exploring Concepts2:31 Other Ideas Considered3:00 Why Data Centers Was the Best Choice3:32 Pivot to Data Centers4:02 Launch of StarCloud 14:30 The H100 in Space5:00 Cost Comparison6:00 The Separation Video6:30 Launch Day Experience7:00 Timeline from Launch to Operation7:30 First Achievements8:30 Orbit Details9:00 Thrusters and Orbit Maintenance9:30 Engineering Challenges10:00 Two Biggest Engineering Challenges10:32 Interconnect Solutions11:00 Thermal Management11:30 Radiation Testing12:01 Radiation Mitigation Approach13:00 Operating in LEO13:30 Initial Investor Reactions14:00 Why People Rejected the Idea14:30 Confidence from Engineering Team15:30 Breaking Down the Problem16:00 The First Launch Booking16:30 Initial Plans vs Reality17:00 Why It Seemed Impossible17:30 Path to Commercial Scale18:30 Sequencing the Journey19:00 Constellation Plans19:30 Largest Data Center Context20:00 Initial Customers20:30 Nvidia Partnership21:00 Nvidia Partnership and Space Chip Development21:28 DC Power and Solar Efficiency22:32 StarCloud 2 and Bitcoin Mining23:00 Fundraising Journey and Market Shifts24:00 Reasons for Market Shift25:01 Challenges During the Round26:00 Technical Team Assessment26:31 Founding Team Assembly27:03 Early Skepticism and Validation28:01 Background and Path to Space29:31 Recruitment Strategy31:01 Cost Competitiveness Requirements31:30 Regulatory Advantages32:30 Water Usage Clarification33:00 Power and Grid Impact34:03 Advice for Hard Tech Founders35:30

In a Nutshell

StarCloud is building data centers in space to bypass terrestrial energy constraints, using cheap solar power and plummeting launch costs. The company launched the first H100 GPU in orbit on StarCloud 1 for $2M (vs. $75-100M quoted), solved radiation and thermal challenges through testing and immersion cooling, and filed for an 88,000-satellite constellation delivering 20 gigawatts of compute. They've raised $170M and are now developing space-optimized chips with Nvidia while winning DoD contracts.

AI-Generated Notes

These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.

First thing every space company should do is book the first available launch they can before they built the thing that they're going to launch, before they built the thing, before they probably even know what they're going to launch. Booking a launch is such a good forcing function for a space company. The company was founded January 1st 2024. January 2nd they booked the first available SpaceX ride share launch and decided something is going to be on that rocket.

Welcome to another episode of the Light Cone. Philip Johnston is the co-founder and CEO of StarCloud. StarCloud is building data centers in space to address the energy bottleneck that AI is creating here on Earth. Earlier this year, they raised $170 million led by Benchmark and became the fastest growing unicorn in YC history just 17 months after demo day.

The company is running up on constraints on where new energy projects can be built terrestrially. By building them in space, they get access to almost unlimited low-cost energy in the form of solar. The cost of launch is actually very rapidly trending down with new launch vehicles coming online, including the Falcon 9 program and Starship on the horizon.

Philip had been working with McKinsey for a few years working with the space agencies of different governments and could see that the launch cost was very rapidly trending down. In early 2023, he decided randomly on a weekend to take a trip down to Starbase Texas where they're building the Starship launch program even before the first launch. Not many people were paying attention back then. He could see that they were building enormous capacity with two Starship gigafactories designed to produce something like three Starships per day.

Because Starship is reusable, on a three or four year time frame, that could lead to having thousands of times the capacity to get things to space. The thinking was: if the launch cost was 10 times lower than it is today, and the launch capacity was maybe a thousand times more than we have today, what would make sense that currently doesn't make sense?

Started thinking about concepts from sci-fi like space-based solar where you have these huge solar panels in space and beam that power down. Reached out to folks known in the space industry and started ideating on what would make sense if the launch cost was much lower than it is today.

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Building the First Data Centers in Space

Booking Launches First00:00

Episode Introduction00:31

Why Data Centers in Space01:03

Origin of the Idea01:30

Sign in to read the full notes