Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, made a rare public appearance at Italian Tech Week in Turin on Friday. During his talk with John Elkann the Chairman of Ferrari and Stellantis, Bezos predicted that millions of people could be living in space within the next few decades, driven not by necessity, but by choice.
He also envisioned a future where robots handle laborious tasks and gigawatt-scale AI data centres operate in orbit. Bezos also compared the emergence of artificial intelligence to the internet boom of the early 2000s, urging a positive outlook despite the possibility of speculative bubbles.
Bezos' comments seem to contest his space race competitor, Elon Musk, who has been a strong advocate for Mars colonization, envisioning a million inhabitants by 2050. The differing visions of these billionaires have led to discussions about the practicality of their ambitious schedules.
Jeff Bezos also forecasted that within the next 10 to 20 years, data centers of gigawatt scale will be constructed in space, with the advantage of constant solar energy allowing them to eventually surpass Earth-based centers. The idea of orbital data centers is gaining popularity among tech companies, as terrestrial centers have increased the demand for electricity and water to cool their servers.
"These giant training clusters, those will be better built in space, because we have solar power there, 24/7. There are no clouds and no rain, no weather," Bezos said in a public discussion with John Elkann, the Chairman of Ferrari and Stellantis. Bezos mentioned that transitioning to space infrastructure is a component of a larger movement aimed at utilizing space to enhance life on Earth.
Jeff Bezos admits for the first time that the AI bubble exists, but he’s optimistic about the impact the technology will have on society. “It can even be good, because when the dust settles and you see who are the winners, societies benefit from those investors,” Bezos said.
“That is what is going to happen here, too. This is real, the benefits to society from AI are going to be gigantic.” Bezos conveyed a positive outlook on the current wave of AI investments, describing it as a 'beneficial' industrial bubble, which he differentiated from speculative financial bubbles.
A tech bubble occurs when company valuations and stock prices become heavily inflated compared to actual business performance like during the dot-com crash of the early 2000s. While some believe the current AI boom shows signs of a bubble, investors highlight key differences. Unlike the dot-com era, today’s market includes solid players like Nvidia, whose chips are critical to AI infrastructure, and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, which is already delivering widely used AI products.