AWS CEO: Space data centers ‘far removed from reality’

“I don’t know if anyone has seen any server farms recently. They are actually very heavy,” Matt Garman said at Cisco AI Summit 2026 taking place in San Francisco.

The AWS CEO then mentioned the number of one million satellites that billionaire Elon Musk plans to use to bring data centers into space. “Delivery requires a huge number of satellites. There are not yet enough rockets to launch a million satellites, so we are still very far from that goal.”

According to him, putting servers, satellites and other equipment into orbit requires huge costs. “If you look at space transportation today, you will realize that it is a huge investment, not economically viable,” he continued.

Garman’s statement came after Musk merged xAI into SpaceX with the goal of building data centers in space. Previously, according to SpaceX records submitted to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the company is asking for permission to launch large-scale satellite constellations to deploy data centers directly in Earth orbit.

Fortune assessed Matt Garman’s statement as “pouring cold water” on ideas about space data centers. In addition to Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin company is also researching this idea. In November 2025, Google announced the Suncatcher project to place a data center in orbit, expected to conduct a number of test flights from next year.

Theo Reutersthe explosion of AI requires large amounts of computing power along with cooling and energy systems, causing data centers on Earth to overload, as well as being opposed locally due to high water and electricity consumption and environmental impact. Meanwhile, data centers in orbit can become an alternative solution by radiating heat directly into the vacuum environment and relying mainly on solar energy.

AWS was born in 2006, is a cloud computing platform developed by Amazon, providing online infrastructure for businesses, organizations and individuals, allowing to store, process and distribute data over the Internet. AWS’s core services include virtual servers, cloud storage, databases, Lambda serverless computing, and the CloudFront content delivery network, used by thousands of companies globally. Currently, AWS maintains its leading position in the field of cloud computing with a global network of data centers.