What a 40 megawatt module costs to build and launch

From Data Centers in Space: The Future of AI Compute on Deeptech Decoded, with Philip Johnston.

Transcript

GL
Glen

So yeah — I wanted to touch on the capital costs of each of your modular units. I know you've got good models for your 100 kilowatt unit scaling up.

GL
Glen

What is your modular capital requirement? Two and a half million for one bird is mind-blowing. But as you get to these LPA-scale shipping container-sized units, what's your target CapEx, aggregating up to five gigawatts?

Philip Johnston
Philip Johnston· Starcloud

Hmm. Interesting reference point. The chips alone on a five gigawatt data center are around $20 billion.

Philip Johnston
Philip Johnston· Starcloud

The biggest cost by a mile is chips. For the 40 megawatt module, we're targeting all-in about $30 million for the satellite structure itself — not including chips, cooling architecture, etc.

Philip Johnston
Philip Johnston· Starcloud

A launch cost of about $10 million (at $100/kg). So $40 million for the structure — roughly equivalent to terrestrial data centers when you add chips and cooling.

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