Industry3 min read
FTC Approves Elon Musk's Acquisition of SpaceX Alumni Startup Mesh Optical Technologies
Tags Infrastructure · AI · Enterprise
TechCrunch·
The FTC cleared Elon Musk's acquisition of Mesh, a SpaceX alumni-founded startup that came out of stealth in February with a $50 million Series A. The acquisition is linked to Musk's orbital data center ambitions. SoftBank's CEO and others have questioned the feasibility of the orbital data center concept, which would place computing infrastructure in space to address terrestrial power and cooling constraints.
Technical significance
Orbital data centers, if technically viable, could address the power and cooling constraints facing terrestrial AI data centers. However, the engineering challenges of space-based computing — radiation hardening, maintenance, latency — remain substantial.