Why AWS' CEO Says Space Data Centres Are Not a Near Prospect

Joining the likes of OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan, Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS) has spoken at Cisco’s AI Summit about where AI is really heading.

While other leaders discussed the possibility of the future of the technology, Matt discussed the infrastructure that is needed to power all these new advancements.

Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer at Cisco, hosted the interview with the CEO. He outlined that AI infrastructure is not as simple as allocating capital, acknowledging that it is “physically very time consuming” to “get the permits, have the power, make sure that you have the entire stack getting built out."

These are all aspects that come with data centres, so Jeetu asked whether space data centres would take away some of the constraints, adding that “solar is going to be 30% more efficient in space”.

“It depends on the timeline for me,” Matt said. “A big chunk of this is just it’s hard. Going and building some of these things are actually quite difficult.”

He added: “People are very excited that they can build software in a fraction of the time, but pouring concrete takes the same amount of time and building buildings takes the same amount of time.

“We haven’t yet built AI agents that can do that. Maybe the robots will eventually.”

The future of data centres

With three Availability Zones (AZs) and over 900 data centres, Matt has overseen these facilities since he became CEO in mid-2024, and has firmly kept them grounded on earth.

He acknowledges that there are perks to data centres. “Infinite amount of power that’s always available, great. Easy cooling, that’s great,” he said.

However, Matt explained that developments aren’t there yet to facilitate it. He said: “I don’t know if you’ve seen a rack of servers recently. They’re heavy.

“And the last I checked, humanity has yet to ever build a structure, a permanent structure, in space, on the moon, or anywhere like that.”

Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, announced on 2 February that it has filed a plan with the Federal Communications Commission to create a network of data centres in space, with up to one million satellites circling the globe in low Earth orbits from 300 miles to about 1,250 miles high.

Referencing this at the AI summit, Matt said: “Elon says he’s going to launch a million satellites or whatever.

“There are not enough rockets to launch a million satellites yet.

“Blue New Origin may actually come in handy there,” he added. “It would be great, but they have to get their cost way down.”

Space data centres as a growing prospect

Although Elon has a more deliberate plan towards getting data centres in space, he is not the only CEO to consider them in the future.

Speaking on the “Google AI: Release Notes” in November 2025, Google CEO Sundar Pichai admitted that the idea seems “crazy” but “when you truly step back and envision the amount of compute we’re going to need, it starts making sense and it’s a matter of time”.

In the previous month, Amazon’s Chair and Founder Jeff Bezos said that gigawatt-scale data centres will be built in space in the next couple of decades, adding that they will eventually outperform Earth’s ones.

During a fireside chat with Ferrari and Stellantis with Ferrari Chairman John Elkann at the Italian Tech Week in Turin, Jeff said: “One of the things that’s going to happen in the next - it’s hard to know exactly when, it’s plus10 years, and I bet it’s not more than 20 - we’re going to start building these gigawatt data centres in space.”

Despite his scepticism towards space data centres, he admits that the curve depends on the curve of innovation, and whether companies continue their commitment towards the prospect.