孙正义否定马斯克太空数据中心构想：AI竞争胜负仍将在陆地决定

Odaily reported that SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son stated at the annual shareholders' meeting of SoftBank's Japanese telecommunications business unit on June 23 that building data centers in space has almost no practical value, and the outcome of the future AI competition will still be determined by computing power infrastructure on the ground.

Responding to a shareholder's question on whether SoftBank would follow Elon Musk's lead in building space-based data centers, Son explicitly expressed his opposition. He pointed out that while space data centers are considered to potentially reduce electricity costs, electricity expenses account for only a very small portion of a data center's operational costs compared to core hardware such as chips. On the contrary, deploying data centers in space would also face high rocket transportation costs, maintenance difficulties, and communication latency issues.

Son emphasized that in the AI industry competition, development over the next few years is far more important than visions for a decade later. SoftBank will focus on building robust data center infrastructure on land and adhere to a "first-mover advantage" strategy.

Additionally, SoftBank's Japanese telecommunications business unit is planning to enter the U.S. market for new AI cloud computing (Neocloud).