His rocket venture, SpaceXannounced on Monday that it is buying xAI in an effort to help the world’s richest man dominate the rocket and artificial intelligence businesses. The deal will combine some of its offerings, including his AI chatbot Grokhis satellite communications company Starlinkand his social media company X.

Musk has repeatedly talked about the need to accelerate the development of technology that will allow data centers to operate in space. He believes that will help overcome the problem of huge costs of electricity and other resources to build and run AI systems on Earth.

It’s a goal Musk suggested in his announcement of the deal that a combined company could easily achieve.

“In the long term, space-based AI is clearly the only way to scale,” Musk wrote on the SpaceX website on Monday, then added in reference to solar power, “It’s always sunny in space!”

Musk said in his announcement that he estimates that “within 2 to 3 years, the lowest-cost way to create AI compute will be in space.”

SpaceX will compete in that realm Googlewhich is working on a research project called Project Suncatcher that will equip solar-powered satellites with AI computer chips, with a prototype that could be launched next year.

But Musk’s prediction of a near future of space-based AI supercomputers is not shared by many other companies building data centers, including Microsoft.

“I’d be shocked if people moved from Earth to low Earth orbit,” Microsoft president Brad Smith said. told The Associated Press last monthwhen asked about alternatives to building US data centers amid mounting community opposition.

Musk is already facing stiff competition in artificial intelligence, where he is scrambling to compete with rivals such as OpenAI, which is also working towards an IPO. Musk’s dislike of OpenAI, which he helped found more than a decade ago, is part of what drove him to start xAI in 2023 and create the ChatGPT alternative he named Grok.

Musk has equally ambitious plans for Tesla as he tries to pivot a company that is declining in car sales to focus more on self-driving taxis and humanoid robots, driven by artificial intelligence.

Tesla recently announced a $2 billion investment in xAI.

Musk has used his control over several companies to combine operations in the past. Tesla bought SolarCity, a decade ago. And he recently bought xAI from his social media platform X, which used to be called Twitter.

Chatting on Wall Street about the billionaire who continues to mix his many businesses with a large Musk Inc.

Forbes magazine puts Musk’s net worth at $768 billion. He also owns a brain implant company called Neuralink and a tunnel digging business called Boring Company.

The terms of SpaceX’s purchase of xAI were not disclosed. Among the companies’ outside investors is a fund in which President Donald Trump’s son, Don Jr., is a partner. That firm, 1789 Capital, made more than $1 billion worth of investments in various Musk companies last year, including SpaceX, xAI, and X, according to data provider Pitchbook, though it has already cashed out of some.

While pursuing data centers in space, xAI is also moving strongly to expand on Earth. Mississippi officials last month announced that the company is set to spend $20 billion to build a data center near the state border in Tennessee.

The data center, called MACROHARDRR, a likely pun on Microsoft’s name, is its third in the greater Memphis area.

Musk also hopes that the combined company will finally help achieve another goal that he has been talking about for a long time – the need to colonize other planets in the event of a natural or man-made disaster on Earth.

When speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Musk thought about humanity being a “small candle in a great darkness, a small candle of consciousness that is easily extinguished.”