Elon Musk said Friday that AI expansion could hit Earth-based limits within about three years, arguing that orbital compute (space-based data processing) may be the only way to keep scaling by 2029 because of power availability and permitting constraints on land. The view broadly aligns with a recent JPMorgan model that projected SpaceX expanding terrestrial compute capacity to roughly 9 gigawatts by 2029, about four times Hoover Dam's nameplate generating capacity, before shifting incremental additions to space. Critics such as Peter Zeihan have mocked the concept, but Patrick Bowen, CEO of photonic chip startup Neurophos, said no single engineering obstacle blocks the approach and argued that more efficient photonic chips (light-based semiconductors) could reduce power use, waste heat and launch mass. Even so, Kalshi (prediction market) traders still assign only a 15% chance of a 1-megawatt orbital data center going live before January 2029 and 39% before 2035, leaving the case heavily dependent on whether Starship, SpaceX's reusable rocket system, can make orbital deployment cheaper and faster than building the next data center on Earth.