Elon Musk is sandbagging SpaceX - Open AI, Anthropic, META, Goggle will all stall on compute @mxux
Watch on YouTubeVideo summary
The video discusses Elon Musk's ambitious plan for Orbital AI, specifically focusing on the feasibility of establishing a massive orbital computing network by 2028 through his joint venture with SpaceX and Tesla known as TerraFab. The speaker argues that while the technical challenges regarding satellite launch vehicles like Starship are largely solved due to rapid reuse capabilities, the primary bottleneck lies in semiconductor supply chains. Current chip production is already constrained for years, making it impossible to meet Musk's aggressive timeline using conventional methods alone. However, the presenter believes this obstacle can be overcome through a combination of specialized application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and breakthrough manufacturing technologies that bypass traditional limitations.
To achieve rapid scaling without waiting five years for standard fabrication plants or relying on scarce ASML lithography machines, the strategy involves utilizing X-ray lithography instead of ultraviolet light-based systems. This approach allows Tesla and SpaceX to potentially use a single linear accelerator to feed multiple production sites simultaneously, significantly reducing costs and construction time. By designing simpler chips optimized for specific tasks like robotics and autonomous driving rather than general-purpose computing, these companies can operate in "dirty rooms" with higher nanometer tolerances, further accelerating the build-out of their facilities in Texas while avoiding the massive capital expenditures estimated by industry analysts.
The speaker concludes that moving AI infrastructure into space solves critical terrestrial constraints such as power availability, real estate limitations, and heat dissipation issues, effectively creating a new S-curve for technological adoption before hitting diminishing returns on Earth-based data processing. With Intel reportedly involved in securing equipment access and Musk's demonstrated ability to manage complex organizations, the project is viewed not as science fiction but as an achievable reality that will secure market dominance by 2028. The presenter expresses strong bullish sentiment toward this initiative, suggesting that once operational, TerraFab will own the entire stack from wafer to finished chip while providing a sustainable path forward for artificial intelligence development beyond current physical limits.
Read the full video transcript
Okay, we're going to um
take a look at Terapab.
I um I did a presentation a while back
and I'm going to try to intercut it. Uh
this is Elon Musk's presentation on
Terraab with that sound. I did a
presentation a while back on Terraab and
on the whole orbital AI
um SpaceX
Tesla joint partnership and the Terraab
and uh we may go over that in a second,
but basically
what it came down to
as far as the success or even
feasibility of this project
uh to meet the timeline that uh Elon
Musk has set out which is uh to have
orbital AI established in 2028
in a meaningful level to uh garner
market share.
There's two things that have to happen.
Uh, one is
they have to have a a launch vehicle
that they can turn around
basically and launch hundreds of times.
A quick reuse launch
module. They have that. Uh, it just
flew. It's going to orbit. Uh, it's
Starship 3 or whatever. The point is the
technical I believe uh the technical
aspects of this project
the launching
uh the launching of the placement of the
satellites in space the design of the
orbital AI satellites
I think that's a math problem
and a money problem
and um SpaceX just did a oh
almost a billion dollar bond offering
and that's on top of their
uh you know two trill
IPO.
So I do not believe there is a problem
with the space aspect of this project.
The other thing they have to have, and
this is this is the whole idea of
Terraab,
they have to be able to have a
supply, a supply chain, an
uninterruptible supply because they're
going to be launching
hundreds of satellites, okay?
And in quick succession and they have to
have
chips.
They have to have chips uh
for the satellites. They have to have uh
chips for um the uh Tesla robot Optimus.
And they have to have chips for the robo
taxi.
Um as you know, the chip production is
sold out and and reserved for years.
Uh I don't know what the workarounds are
on that but even the memory
micron is has sold out memory for two
years.
So this this is the key stumbling block
is the chip supply that is the critical
factor. I think the engineering is
there. I think the talent is there. I
think Musk has proved he's a really good
CEO. He knows how to uh manage money and
manage large organizations and technical
organizations and you know he's the new
Howard use or he's one of the the best
uh you know hands-on technical CEOs
you know probably ever. I you know I
don't think Bill Gates can compare but
anyway the point is
so they have to have these chips and
they're planning on building Terapab
which is going to be
a monstrous
uh location in Texas and uh it's going
to be like
10 million square feet. You can look up
the stats. It's going to be the largest
of its type and it's going to be built
in stages. one one building after
another and I think that
SpaceX I mean Tesla and Musk certainly
can do this construction. Okay. The
question is and this is the question I
raised in the video I made on this
topic.
the Lamb uh Lamb uh research uh UV
lithography machines that make the chips
are on back order. They only make 50 of
them a year or whatever. It's uh there's
a bottleneck there. And they are
partnering with I with Intel and I don't
know if Intel has access to pre-made
orders on those, but that is a serious
problem. There is no way they're going
to fill these fabs up with these
lithograph machines because there aren't
any. And
uh
you know um there are other constraints
as well. They they say that conventional
metrics
say that if they're going to build and
let's say a 2 nanometer
plant, I don't know what they're going
to do, 3 nanometer, whatever. I think
IBM just did below one nanometer. U
let's say a 2 nanometer plant,
uh chip foundry like TSMC.
Um they're saying
five years. five years uh to construct
that TSMC.
Uh they just built one in Arizona. They
used a method called copy exact.
Almost drove them crazy. They made a
exact down to the millimeter nanometer
copy of their facilities in
uh Taiwan including the water supply and
everything else. They're saying that uh
you know this is this is a
uh you know it's a five-year project
anyway and at the at the scale Musk
wants to do it's
the cost
and I some reliable estimates put a
conventional build cost
at
$3 trillion.
Okay, that's $3 trillion. Okay. So
that's
I don't know they can probably raise
that but the time frame of 5 years is
going to put them out of Musk wants to
be launching in in uh you know a year
and a half. He feels that he will not he
will lose market share to competitors if
he does not have a working system up by
2028 and he wants to start launching uh
basically next year. Um so
I said you know I you know is this
another one of Musk's uh you know high
flulutin ideas that is going to be
delayed and delayed and delayed and I if
you do the conventional research on the
building of these fabs and fab chip fab
foundaries
that's all very true. However,
this is the breakthroughs uh
breakthrough throughs multiple
that is going to
make this a successful
SpaceX is going to be able to do this.
Tesla is going to be able to do this.
They're going to
own the full stack on everything.
And uh they're going to use uh two
different methods
uh to do this. One is
they're going to make AS6 chips
application specific integrated
circuits.
These are not going to be Swiss Army
nice circuits. Even even the GPUs
really they're they are a sick but not
really. Okay. So for each application
the uh orbital AI uh Optimus robot robo
taxi Tesla
etc.
Um they're they're going to make
specific chips.
These chips are going to be simpler
uh than a full functioning you know
Intel PC processor. They're going to be
optimized for production. I would be
willing to bet they're even going to go
with a
three or five nanometer scale because if
they're going to be specific, they can
make them bigger. Musk has mentioned two
things that are critical. The reason,
one of the reasons I think it's going to
be a larger nanometer scale is because
um Musk mentioned that we don't need
clean rooms. We're going to have dirty
rooms.
And uh you know when you're at higher
nanometer tolerances you know you can
tolerate more dust. That's just my
opinion.
But the second thing is
having to do so they you know they can
build the factories. Uh you know Musk
can engineer the factories and build.
Nobody builds factories quicker or
better than Tesla right? Uh you know
they can design the A6 chips. Okay. uh
they probably already have designs. The
question is
um how are they going to come up with
the you know $3 billion or $3 trillion I
believe was the quote to to pay for all
this and the answer is they're going to
simplify everything.
And the main thing in my mind and the
clue to this is Mus said we are
experimenting with new physics right
now.
uh to accomplish this task. And they
have a prototype system working off in a
corner at the uh Texas plant there.
They've built a a little experimental
lab. They have a thing called X-ray
lithography. Right now they use uh
ultraviolet light lethography with the
LAN machines.
And what they do is they have a giant
laser
light apparatus inside the machine. It's
actually the biggest component inside
those lithograph machines. They put a
drop of tin in a chamber. They hit it
with a laser. It explodes. It creates
this ultraviolet light and they use that
because it's such a small wavelength
uh to etch the integrated circuits on
the silicon discs. Okay. The the it's a
lithography thing. Okay. And that's
very complicated and very expensive and
uh this is the state-of-the-art at the
moment. Now there is a new way of doing
this that's faster, cheaper, better,
more efficient.
Uh the Russians are doing it. I'm sure
China has something going on. There's
some experimental projects. There is one
company that's working on this that is
not public yet. Uh but they want to
build a prototype plant. I don't know.
Musk may be working with them. Who
knows? Maybe they will buy them. I don't
know. But this is what I suspect is how
Musk is going to solve this terap
problem is they're going to use
X-raybased
lithography.
Rather than having the
uh ultraviolet light, they're going to
use X-rays to
generate these uh beams to uh do the
lithography on these chips. And the way
this works, and this is why I think Mus
is going to use it, cuz he said, "We're
playing around with physics right now.
One, there are several different types
of this going on. The one I think that
he's most likely to use actually uses a
small linear accelerator, you know, like
CERN, okay? And it accelerates atoms uh
at the speed of light and u it splits
them and it turns them into X-rays and
that is the X-ray that they use to etch
uh the chip. It's much simpler than the
current uh lamb research method. And the
thing about it is
this is what really struck me.
um they can have one
linear accelerator and this is a small
scale. This isn't certain level. This is
probably fit in the warehouse or
whatever.
They can have one
particle accelerator running
and it it can it's like a a steam line
or something. They can port that output
to many different locations. Okay. And
it will work. Uh so in other words uh
and I'm not saying they're going to do
this but like I said the lamb machines
are sold in in advance there's no leeway
in the ordering unless Intel has some
and maybe Tesla has pull but
if you get the lamb machine without the
ultraviolet light generator which is the
largest most expensive part of that
machine if you just have the optics and
then instead of using that ultraviolet
light, you simply port this X-ray beam
uh into the machine and use that.
It cuts the cost of the the LAN machine
or some similar device with the LAN
machine, let's say, down to the optics.
It's like 50%
maybe more than 50% of the cost is to in
those machines is to have this device to
generate this ultraviolet light. You
don't need it. You poured in the
electron beam with the X-rays and you
can you can have uh 10 lamb machines
working in 10 different spots on the
plant and they can all be fed by one
linear accelerator
and uh they're much simpler. Um,
they
they're not competing with anyone cuz
nobody else is using this. If Lamb chose
I'm not saying Lamb is going to do this,
but I'm sure they could come up with
another way of doing this. But the point
is they just order the lamb machines
without the light source, okay, which is
the most difficult thing and most
precise part of that whole apparatus and
most expensive. And they just have the
lens work, okay? Uh Zeiss makes these
lenses, okay? And uh and they port this
electron beam, this X-ray uh beam into
these different uh foundry machines,
lithograph machines. This is how they
can do it. This is how they can scale
production quickly. And by the way,
these X-ray uh
lithography machines, Kitty, what's the
matter, baby? Baby, come here, baby.
Come on. These X-ray lithography
machines are they can do all kind of
stuff. Multiple layers. They're much
they work much quicker. This is one
workaround. I think that this is what
Mus is going to do. Some derivation of
this. So, in other words, a hybrid
lithography machine. And um this is this
is going to do it for them. This is
going to enable them to uh at a more
reasonable cost
scale
uh this effort quickly. So in other
words
um yes SpaceX and Tesla can do this and
the terapab
uh is uh the chip supply is the key
factor here in all of these Tesla and
SpaceX projects.
Um once Musk gets this up and running
and I'm sure they're going to do it a
piece at a time. Uh Musk is going to
have uh you know he's going to own the
full stack
uh you know from the wafer to the to the
IC chip and so forth. And by the way
going to make memory too. And by the way
I'm of the opinion dojo has been
is resurrected in the background and I
and this is like the serabus chip. It's
all on one chip. This is perfect for a
space application. memory, ICU and so on
and so forth on one chip. So
in other words, um this is all doable.
This is not pie in the sky. It's not
impossible.
It's not I don't even think it's
improbable.
And I think that
it's achievable financially.
And I think at that point I did another
uh video
um which not a lot of people saw about
the advancing S-curve. Um we're at a a a
pivot point in the whole AI
race right now. What people are missing,
you know, there's an S adoption curve
and they have worked this out for years
for technology and so on and so forth.
The thing is
AI is moving so quickly it's compressed
that
um adoption curve and we are now
far ahead of uh where we should be uh
where we we were supposed to be and
we're at the point where there's
according to the S-curve theory with
this new advanced uh speed it up
calculation we're at the point where
there there should be a a gigantic
change in the whole thing. Now uh
Liupold Alultz uh he has he has
mentioned uh two things but he's short
every chip manufacturer
um and he's long power and facilities
um cuz he feels that that is going to be
the limiting factor
and uh nimi and so forth by putting
these uh AI nodes in space. It solves
all these problems, the power, the real
estate, everything. And by the way, also
is Leopold is short Nvidia at least as
of his last last F13.
So the point is
this is all coming together. Um this
Scurve is going to uh accelerate. you
know, we're we're simply not and there
are workarounds
being undertaken now, but we in the
United States are not going to have uh
the electricity that we need to power
all of the output that we need to have.
And I do believe Oracle is at like 98%
of all the capacity they have is under
contract. They have no room to grow.
We're moving past the LLM model and
we're moving into the inference stage.
And you know, Liupold uh just did a um a
short I saw on the data wall.
And he is wondering if we're going to
hit the data wall. And by that he means
um you know, they've already copied
basically everything on the planet and
put it into the LLMs.
And according to him, he said you can do
that about 16 times.
And each inference, each iteration
uh gets a little better, a little
better, a little better, and then at
some point it doesn't get any better.
You hit diminishing returns. It's like,
uh, you know, copying a VHS tape over
and over again. At some point, you got
nothing. It's mush. and he says there's
optimizations and and different models
that can be run and everything, but he's
thinking out loud that this is going to
happen in which case inference is going
to be
uh you know the uh the go-to the LLMs
uh are uh
you know they're done for right now
anyway, but anyway, you can look into
that yourself. The point of this video
is
that
SpaceX
and Tesla
are going to be able to do this. They
are they're going to be able to do this
orbital AI. It is going to happen. And
as I said, I went through every variable
and the the bottleneck, okay, is the
chips
uh that are necessary to accomplish all
these projects. With the Terra Fab,
they're going to solve those problems
and own the stack and keep costs down.
Okay?
And you know, can they can they do it?
Can they get this up and running within
2 years? I think they can with these new
technologies and simplified specialized
chips. I think they can do it and I
think they have the money to do it at a
re, you know, that the cost is not going
to be the three trillion that the
experts are saying because they're going
to use this simplified fab method and
simplified chips and likely a larger
nanometer.
They're going to have the money. They're
going to have the talent. They got uh
Intel there on board. Um they've got
this new X-ray lithography technology.
There are other versions of that as
well. And they have the money, they have
the talent, they have the time.
Um so I'm bullish. I'm bullish on
SpaceX.
I'm bullish on Tesla and I'm bullish on
Terraab.
I think that uh as as crazy as it
sounds, I think this is all a I don't
know. I mean, I've looked into this
pretty carefully. If you can you can
look at my video catalog. There's
several videos I've done on different
aspects of this. And with this newest
information,
I could see this, you know,
coming to fruition. I do believe this is
a done deal. See Mus snickering there,
grinning. You know why he's grinning?
Cuz he knows he's going to pull it off.
He's going to pull it off.
And um moving the AI into space is going
to it's just going to lower cost and
solve problems and uh really make it
more practical. But anyway,
I don't know. Uh as I said,
Liupold is or is his is last F13 or
whatever the filing is is is shorting
all the chip makers. my video I did the
analysis of the S-curve has accelerated.
There is going to be a
you know
a ch it's time to advance this whole
AI thing and move it into a new scurve
to start a new scurve and that's early.
uh people are thinking that uh you know
it's not it is it's early uh it's
earlier than people think I think um
uh this reality is the new the new
scurve I think is terapab is orbital AI
I think is Musk and uh who knows maybe
quantum in space as well at some point
but uh uh the point is uh very bullish
um these terrestrial models are going to
be like an old dried up calendar. Musk
said
he wants um this system up. He said if I
don't get it by 2028, if I don't get a
get a system up, we're going to we're
not going to be able to capture market
share. I think they're going to be able
to do it. I think they're going to, you
know, we'll see. I think they're already
advancing the construction of empty
buildings for the terapab. Now they do
have the lab running but as I said um
this company one in particular
they feel they've pro project u
perfected this and they want a
demonstration project they want to go
into production they're ready I think
this is what is doing all right this is
MXUX good luck in the Good job.