Booming
Booming

The great data center space race

04 February 2026 21:08 KUOW News and Information

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About this episode

Data centers needed more space, so they literally moved there.

This week, Elon Musk announced he has merged his rocket company, Space X – with his AI company, xAI. The reason? He wants to build AI data centers in space.

But his company is not the only one that wants to take the cloud... off the planet.Various companies from Google to Blue Origin to smaller startups are looking to Earth's orbit as the next data center frontier. And companies in Seattle are leading the charge.

Today, how close are we to actually putting data centers in space?And why wouldyouwantto?

GUEST:
Dr. Saadia Pekkanen, professor of Law, International Studies and Political Science at the University of Washington

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go tokuow.org/donate/boomingnotes.

Coming up:  Have you been laid off from a tech company in the last couple of years? We'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at (206) 221-7158 and leave a voicemail with your hacks-- it could be featured on an upcoming episode. You can also email us at [email protected].

Booming is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. Our editor isCarol Smith. Our producers are Lucy Soucek and Alec Cowan. Our hosts are Joshua McNichols and Monica Nickelsburg.

Support the show: https://kuow.org/donate

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