内容来源：https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/27/softbanks-ceo-isnt-the-only-one-with-questions-about-elon-musks-orbital-data-center-hype/

内容总结：

马斯克太空数据中心愿景遭孙正义质疑：远水难解近渴

埃隆·马斯克关于建设太空数据中心的宏大构想，并未获得所有人的认同。软银集团创始人兼首席执行官孙正义在近日的股东大会上公开唱反调，直言太空数据中心不仅难以有效降低成本，而且建设周期过长。在“人工智能大战”白热化的当下，“未来几年远比十年后发生的事情重要得多”。

在科技媒体TechCrunch的最新一期播客节目中，三位编辑深入探讨了孙正义的此番言论，并将其置于更广泛的行业背景下进行解读，同时还涉及OpenAI的自研芯片计划、芯片创企Groq获得6.5亿美元新融资等热点话题。

孙正义的“讽刺”之处：爱下赌注的人却成了怀疑论者

节目联合主持人克斯滕·科罗塞克指出，鉴于软银长期以来以“疯狂押注”著称，此次孙正义扮演怀疑论者的角色显得“极具讽刺意味”。另一位主持人肖恩·奥凯恩则一针见血地指出，马斯克提出用“需要每隔几年更换的卫星星座”来构建“太空数据中心”，本质上是在为自家SpaceX的发射业务“锁定更多订单”。

奥凯恩还调侃道，如今“新云”成了新石油，谁都想来分一杯羹。无论是曾被英伟达“掏空”的芯片公司Groq，还是从破产中转型成“新云服务商”的鞋履品牌Allbirds，乃至SpaceX，都在试图出租自己的算力。SpaceX近期刚与一家较小的公司签署了IPO后的首份算力租赁协议。

太空数据中心：十年后的生意，解决不了当下的“算力荒”

针对马斯克的太空构想，主持人安东尼·哈表示，孙正义的质疑非常中肯：即便技术上可行，其高昂的成本和漫长的建设周期（需要多年时间）都无法解决当前迫在眉睫的数据中心需求。全行业都处于“算力极度紧缺”的状态，尽管在地球上建设数据中心面临诸多挑战，但将目光投向太空并非良方。

科罗塞克进一步分析称，尽管许多风投和创始人曾被太空数据中心的概念所吸引，甚至一度形成“全民上车”的热潮，但孙正义这样重量级的人物公开提出质疑，是行业发展中的重要一环。

没有旁观者，只有利益相关者

奥凯恩认为，马斯克之所以力推太空数据中心，深层原因在于SpaceX的发射业务现在极度依赖星链（Starlink）。如果没有星链，SpaceX在全球发射市场的份额将从如今的80%-90%骤降至20%-40%。而提出太空数据中心，恰恰能为发射业务创造持续的“卫星换代需求”。

哈总结指出，在这场关于AI未来的讨论中，没有任何客观中立的观察者。马斯克描绘的愿景对SpaceX的发射生意极为有利；孙正义代表的软银则在地球上的数据中心项目上投入了巨资；而同样对太空数据中心嗤之以鼻的OpenAI首席执行官萨姆·奥尔特曼，也与马斯克有着漫长的恩怨纠葛。所有这些预测背后，都站着各自的利益与算盘。

中文翻译：

并非所有人都在买账埃隆·马斯克关于轨道数据中心的构想。
软银创始人兼首席执行官孙正义在最近一次股东大会上提出，在“人工智能之战中，未来几年远比十年后可能发生的事重要得多”，而在太空建设数据中心不仅难以大幅降低成本，而且耗时过长。
在TechCrunch《股权》播客最新一期节目中，我与Kirsten Korosec、Sean O'Kane一同讨论了孙正义的这番言论，并将其纳入涵盖OpenAI定制芯片计划、芯片制造商Groq新获6.5亿美元融资等更广泛议题的对话中。
Kirsten指出，考虑到软银“长期热衷于豪赌”，孙正义此时扮演质疑者的角色实属“非常讽刺”。
与此同时，Sean表示，当马斯克谈论“建造由每几年需更换的卫星组成的卫星星座来构成‘轨道数据中心’”时，他不过是在为SpaceX“确保更多业务”。
以下是我们对话的节选，内容经过精简和清晰化处理。
肖恩·奥凯恩： 听我说，新云就是新石油，所有想赚钱的人都在转向新云。我很自豪地宣布，TechCrunch现在也成了新云，请把你们的钱都给我们。
我的意思是，这就是你们玩的把戏。现在似乎有太多参与者受限于计算能力，所以任何有机会出租这种计算能力的玩家——无论是曾被英伟达半掏空的Groq，还是从破产中转型为新云提供商（而非继续卖鞋）的Allbirds（蒂姆·费恩霍尔茨曾采访该新项目的CEO，我强烈推荐大家去读一读）——都在抓住机会。
或者像SpaceX那样，他们的构想是：我要打造一个人工智能平台，其潜在市场规模将达到美国GDP的体量，但在那之前，我们先出租计算能力。我们看到SpaceX继续推进这一路线，虽然交易规模不及他们与谷歌或Anthropic的合作，但他们刚签下另一笔交易——IPO后的首笔交易——向另一家规模较小的参与者出租计算能力。他们正沿着这条路继续走下去。
你知道，短期内我能看到Groq在这方面形成业务。但对所有这些玩家而言，问题在于长期来看这种模式能持续多久。
安东尼·哈： 如果我们讨论SpaceX及其人工智能业务和数据中心业务，就不得不提软银CEO孙正义最近的言论——他基本上在问：太空数据中心的意义何在？这正是我们节目里提过的问题。
这再次印证了行业内的共识：计算能力极度受限——他们需要尽可能多地建设数据中心，而在地球上实现这一目标正面临各种挑战，因此太空或许是个答案。但我认为孙正义提出了一些相当合理的观点：即便我们讨论的所有设想都能实现（而且实现这一目标的成本将极其高昂），这也不是几年内能完成的事，因此对于当前对数据中心的迫切需求而言，这根本不是解决方案。
柯尔斯顿·科罗赛克： 我只想指出一点：软银在豪赌方面有着悠久历史。当孙正义站出来问出许多人都在问的问题时，我认为这本身就很有意味。
我的意思是，很多风投和创始人都被轨道数据中心的构想所吸引，似乎突然间所有人都欣然接受。而就在几年前，如果有人提出这个想法，可能还会被泼冷水。所以我认为，有一位如此高调的人物提出这个问题，确实是这个过程中重要的一环。但让我感到非常讽刺的是，偏偏是他提出了这个问题，因为如果看看他的融资演示文件，你会发现他们曾向相当大胆的构想投入了大量资金。
肖恩： 比如WeWork！听着，未来几年我们会反复提到这个例子。将这些东西送入太空的构想将是一个有趣的工程挑战，当然也是一个有趣的经济挑战。
安东尼，你说的在一定程度上绝对正确。埃隆·马斯克是个厌恶繁文缛节的人，而且你知道，太空中没有“邻避效应”，所以他当然会去尝试。
对我来说，问题的核心在于：目前SpaceX的业务，尤其是其发射业务，极度依赖星链。他们之所以能占据全球发射市场80%到90%的份额，不仅因为他们做到的比全球几乎所有其他发射服务商都更好，还因为有星链在推动这个数字。如果去掉星链，他们的市场份额可能会降到——我不知道——20%或30%，或者40%，但肯定不会是90%。
而当你谈论建造由每隔几年就需要更换的卫星组成的“所谓轨道数据中心”时，你不过是在为自己的发射业务锁定更多订单。我实在无法不反复强调这一点。
柯尔斯顿： 我想快速补充一点：顺便提一句，SpaceX的另一项大业务就是出租他们的计算能力。所以，这又回到了关于芯片的讨论。我们绕了一圈又回来了。
安东尼： 贯穿本期节目的另一个主题可能是“为自己的利益说话”。这并非新现象。科技公司或其他企业的高管们对未来所做的预测，最终都是有利于其自身业务的前景。
但我认为，在讨论大型人工智能公司时，这一点总是值得牢记，因为我们正处在一个充满巨大不确定性的时刻，所有人都在问：未来的就业市场会是什么样？这将对环境产生什么影响？我需要学习哪些技能？
所有人工智能公司的CEO或人工智能投资者，对这些都有各自的看法。这倒不是说他们错了或故意误导，但每个预测背后都带有附加条件。就马斯克而言，他谈论的是对SpaceX业务非常有利的事情。就软银而言，他们在地球上的数据中心项目上投入了极其庞大的资金。另一位值得注意的人物是山姆·奥特曼，他对轨道数据中心的构想也不以为然——当然，他和埃隆·马斯克显然有着漫长而复杂的历史纠葛。
所有这些都说明，这里没有客观中立的观察者。这些人全都带着各自的包袱，并且牵涉着巨额资金。

英文来源：

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.