소프트뱅크의 손정의 회장이 일론 머스크가 제안한 '우주 데이터센터'의 경제성과 실현 가능성에 강한 회의감을 표명했습니다. TechCrunch 팟캐스트 진행자들 역시 이를 지적하며, 스페이스X가 이를 빌미로 자사의 컴퓨팅 파워를 임대하는 비즈니스를 키우고 있다고 분석했습니다. 이는 현재 극심한 AI 컴퓨팅 병목 현상 속에서 기업들의 생존 전략과 우주 기반 인프라의 현실성을 엿볼 수 있는 중요한 이슈입니다.
번역된 본문
애플 팟캐스트와 스포티파이에서 청취하세요.
모두가 일론 머스크의 우주 데이터센터 비전을 믿는 것은 아닙니다. 소프트뱅크 창립자이자 CEO인 손정의 회장은 최근 주주총회에서 우주에 데이터센터를 구축하는 것은 비용 절감에 큰 도움이 되지 않으며 시간도 너무 오래 걸린다고 주장했습니다. 그는 "AI 주도권 쟁탈전에서 앞으로 수년간이 10여 년 후에 일어날 일보다 훨씬 더 중요할 것"이라고 덧붙였습니다.
최신 TechCrunch의 Equity 팟캐스트 에피소드에서 커스틴 코로섹(Kirsten Korosec), 숀 오킨(Sean O'Kane), 그리고 저(앤서니 하)는 손 회장의 발언에 대해 논의했습니다. 이는 OpenAI의 맞춤형 칩 계획, 칩 제조사 Groq의 6억 5천만 달러 신규 펀딩 등을 다루는 폭넓은 논의의 일환이었습니다. 커스틴은 소프트뱅크의 "엄청난 모험을 감행해 온 긴 역사"를 생각해 보면 손 회장이 회의론자 역할을 하고 있다는 것이 "매우 아이러니"하다고 지적했습니다. 반면 숀은 머스크가 "몇 년마다 교체해야 하는 위성들을 띄워 '우주 데이터센터'를 구성하겠다"고 말할 때, 그것은 스페이스X에게 "그만큼의 비즈니스를 보장해 주는 것"에 불과하다고 말했습니다.
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숀 오킴(Sean O'Kane): 들어보세요. '네오-클라우드(neo-cloud)'가 새로운 석유입니다. 돈을 벌고 싶어 하는 모든 사람이 네오-클라우드로 사업 방향을 틀고 있습니다. TechCrunch도 이제 네오-클라우드가 되었다고 공식적으로 발표하고 싶군요. 우리에게 돈을 다 주세요. (농담입니다만) 실제로 이런 식으로 돌아가고 있습니다. 현재 컴퓨팅 자원(compute)에 제약을 겪고 있는 플레이어가 너무 많아서, 누구든 컴퓨팅 파워를 임대할 수 있는 기회가 있다면 그 기회를 잡고 있습니다. 엔비디아(Nvidia)에 의해 반쯤 텅 빈 상태가 되었던 회사인 Groq든지, 파산 보호 절차를 거쳐 신발 파는 것을 멈추고 새로운 네오-클라우드 제공자로 다시 태어난 Allbirds든지 말입니다. 팀 펀홀츠(Tim Fernholz)가 이 새로운 노력을 이끄는 신임 CEO와 인터뷰한 기사가 있는데, 사람들에게 꼭 읽어보라고 권하고 싶네요. 아니면 당신이 스페이스X라면 이런 아이디어일 것입니다. '미국 GDP 규모의 주소 지정 가능한 시장을 가진 AI 플랫폼을 구축할 거지만, 그 단계에 도달하기 전까지는 당분간 우리의 컴퓨팅 자원을 임대해 주겠다'라는 식이죠. 우리는 이런 일이 스페이스X에서 계속 일어나는 것을 목격했습니다. 구글이나 앤스로픽(Anthropic)과 맺은 계획만큼 규모가 크지는 않지만, IPO 이후 첫 번째로 다른 소규모 플레이어에게 컴퓨팅 파워를 임대해 주는 계약을 맺었습니다. 그들은 계속해서 그 길을 걷고 있습니다. 가까운 미래에는 이것이 Groq에게도 유효한 비즈니스 모델이 될 수 있다고 봅니다. 이 모든 것들에 대한 진정한 의문은 '장기적으로 이것이 얼마나 지속 가능한가'입니다.
앤서니 하(Anthony Ha): 스페이스X의 AI 비즈니스와 데이터센터 비즈니스에 대해 이야기하자면, 최근 소프트뱅크 CEO 손정의 회장이 한 발언에 대해서도 짚고 넘어가야 합니다. 그는 기본적으로 "우주에 데이터센터를 만드는 요점이 대체 무엇인가?"라고 물었습니다. 이는 우리가 이 쇼에서도 했던 질문입니다. 이는 업계가 정말로 심각한 컴퓨팅 부족 현상에 직면해 있다는 사실을 다시 한번 보여줍니다. 그들은 최대한 많은 데이터센터를 구축해야 하지만, 지구상에서 그것을 증명하는 데에는 온갖 종류의 어려움이 있다는 이유로 어쩌면 우주가 그 해답이 될 수도 있을 거라고 생각합니다. 하지만 손 회장의 지적은 꽤 타당하다고 생각합니다. 우리가 논의하는 이 모든 것들이 전부 다 작동한다고 쳐도(그리고 그것을 작동하게 만들 비용은 매우, 매우 심각할 것입니다), 이런 일이 현실화되려면 수년, 수년, 또 수년이 걸릴 것입니다. 따라서 현재 당면한 데이터센터 필요량 문제에 있어서 이것은 그 어떤 시급한 문제에 대한 해결책도 되지 않습니다.
커스틴 코로섹(Kirsten Korosec): 저는 소프트뱅크가 엄청난 모험을 감행해 온 긴 역사를 가지고 있다는 점을 지적하고 싶습니다. 손 회장이 나서서 많은 사람들이 해왔던 질문을 던진다는 것은 꽤 의미 있는 일이라고 생각합니다. 제 말은, 많은 벤처 캐피탈리스트(VC)와 창업자들이 우주 데이터센터 아이디어에 매료되어 있고, 마치 갑자기 모두가 그 계획에 찬성하는 것처럼 보입니다. 불과 몇 년 전만 해도 누군가 그런 말을 했다면 조금 묵살되었을 텐데 말입니다. 그래서 저는 상당히 영향력 있는 인물이 그런 질문을 던지는 것이 과정에서 중요한 부분이라고 생각합니다. 하지만 그가 그 질문을 던지고 있는 사람이라는 사실은 제게 매우 아이러니하게 다가옵니다. 왜냐하면 그의 피치덱(pitch deck)을 보면...
Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Not everyone is buying Elon Musk’s vision for orbital data centers . Masayoshi Son, the founder and CEO of Softbank, argued at a recent shareholder meeting that building data centers in space won’t do much to cut costs and will take too long when “in the battle for AI, the next few years will be far more important than what might happen a decade or so from now.” On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast , Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed Son’s remarks as part of a broader discussion that included OpenAI’s plans for custom chips , chipmaker Groq’s new $650 million funding , and much more. Kirsten noted that it’s “very ironic” that Son is playing the skeptic here, given SoftBank’s “long history of wild bets.” Sean, meanwhile, said that when Musk talks about “making a constellation of satellites — satellites that need to be replaced every few years as well — to make up an ‘orbital data center,’” he’s just “guaranteeing that much more business” for SpaceX. Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. Sean O’Kane: Listen, neo-clouds are the new oil, and everybody who wants to make money is pivoting to a neo-cloud. I'm proud to announce that TechCrunch is now a neo-cloud, give us all your money. I mean, this is the thing you do. It seems like there are so many players that are compute constrained, so anybody who has a shot at being able to lease out that compute is taking it, whether that's Groq, a company that was semi-hollowed out by Nvidia, or Allbirds, which went into bankruptcy and and emerged from it as a new neo-cloud provider instead of selling shoes — Tim Fernholz did an interview with the new CEO of of that new effort that I would definitely recommend people go read. Or whether you're SpaceX, where your idea was: I'm gonna build an AI platform that's gonna have an addressable market the size of U.S. GDP, but before we get there, we'll just rent out our compute. And we saw this continue to happen with SpaceX, where it's not as big as the deals that they've struck with Google or Anthropic, but they just signed another deal , [their] first post IPO deal, to rent out compute to another smaller player. They're continuing down that road. You know, I can see this being a business for Groq in the near term. The question with all of these is how durable is it in the long term. Anthony Ha: If we're talking about SpaceX and their AI business and data center business, we also have to talk about these comments that Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, made recently, where he basically said: What is the point of data centers in space? Which is a question we've asked on this show. And it speaks to, again, this sense in the industry of being really, really compute constrained — they need to build as many data centers as possible, [and] there's all kinds of reasons why that is proving to be challenging here on Earth, so maybe space is the answer. But I think Son makes some pretty fair points about: All this stuff we're talking about, even if it all works — and the costs are going to be very, very serious to make it work — this is not happening for years and years and years, so this is not a solution to any immediate problem, as far the current need for data centers goes. Kirsten Korosec: I just want to point out that SoftBank has a long history of making wild bets. I think it says something when Son comes up and asks the question that a lot of people have asked. I mean, there are a lot of VCs and founders [who] have been swept up into the idea of orbital data centers and it seems like suddenly everyone's on board. When just a couple of years ago, I think, if someone had mentioned that, it would get slapped down a little bit. So I do think it's an important part of the process that someone who has a pretty high profile is asking that question. But it is very ironic to me that he is the one asking it, because if you look at his pitch deck , they've thrown a lot of money at some pretty bold ideas. Sean: WeWork! Listen, we're going to be saying this for a lot over the next couple years. The idea of putting these things in space is going to be an interesting engineering challenge and certainly an interesting economic challenge. Anthony, what you said is definitely right to a certain extent. Elon Musk is a person who hates red tape and you know, there are no NIMBYs in space so of course he's going to try and do that. To me, it comes down to: The business as it stands now for SpaceX, especially its launch business, is just overwhelmingly reliant on Starlink. The reason that they are 80 or 90% of the launch market globally is not just because they've done all these things that are better than pretty much every other launch provider around the globe, it's also because they have Starlink that is driving up that number. If you remove Starlink from the equation, they would be closer to — I don't know, maybe 20% or 30% of the launch market, or 40%, but it certainly wouldn't be 90%. And when you talk about making a constellation of satellites — satellites that need to be replaced every few years as well — to make up an “orbital data center,” quote unquote, you're just guaranteeing that much more business for your launch business. And I just can't stop myself from coming back to that point. Kirsten: I want to really quickly say that [SpaceX’s] other big business is renting out their compute, by the way. So back to the chip conversation. We've come full circle. Anthony: One of the other themes that may run through this episode is this idea of talking your own book . This is not a new phenomenon. Executives at tech companies, or any other company, what they're predicting for the future is ultimately the future that is going to be advantageous to their business. But I think it's something that's just always worth remembering when we're having these conversations about big AI companies, because it is this moment of incredible uncertainty, and we’re all wondering: What does the job market look like in the future? What effect is this going to have on the environment? What are the skills I need to learn? All these AI CEOs or AI investors, they all have thoughts on that. And it's not that they're wrong or that they are being deliberately misleading, but in each case, there's an asterisk to these predictions. In Musk's case, he's talking about something that would be very good for SpaceX's business. In SoftBank’s case, they are very, very heavily invested in data center projects here on Earth. Sam Altman is the other notable figure who's rolled his eyes a bit at the orbital data center idea — and again, he and Elon Musk obviously have a long and complicated history together . All of which is to say that there's just no objective, impartial observers here. It's all these people with baggage and tremendous amounts of money at stake. Topics AI , Masayoshi Son , Softbank , Space When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Anthony Ha Anthony Ha is TechCrunch's weekend editor. Previously, he worked as a tech reporter at Adweek, a senior editor at VentureBeat, a local government reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, and vice president of content at a VC firm. He lives in New York City. You can contact or verify outreach from Anthony by emailing anthony.ha@techcrunch.com . View Bio November 4 Boston Last chance to save up to $190 on TechCrunch Founder Summit. Join 1,000+ founders and VCs at all stages for real-world scaling insights and connections that move the needle. Savings end June 26, 11:59 p.m. PT . 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