They could be cheaper than ones on Earth, with the right technology

An illustration of planet earth with two rings made up of circuit board-like patterns surrounding with stars and the moon in the background.
Illustration: Raven Jiang

ELON MUSK thinks it will be feasible “within two years, maybe three at the latest”. Sam Altman of OpenAI says it is “ridiculous…we are not there yet”. Google plans to test the concept next year. Eric Schmidt, its former boss, has bought a rocket-launch company to pursue it. At issue is the question of whether the best place to build data centres for artificial intelligence is not on Earth—but in space.

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Pairwise genome edited blackberry plants.