Why Put Nvidia Computers on Starship?

Jensen Huang says NVIDIA's engineers and Elon Musk's team are designing a server that works in space and on Earth. Musk wants computing and physical buildouts in the same place, and Huang says nobody knows energy better. The case is not that a launch is cheap. NVIDIA's performance per unit of energy makes the return on the computer high enough that the launch cost is a small share of it. Low-cost computing does not belong in orbit. High-value computing does, and he calls this the highest-value system in the history of computing.

The machine also has to stay useful after it is up there. Huang says NVIDIA is the only hardware company that still ships new software, including new algorithms, for a chip a customer bought eight years ago. A satellite can keep receiving those updates for as long as it flies. The compute is fungible. NVIDIA works with every closed-model company, runs every open model, and already has thousands of startups and enterprises as customers, so the plan is not an empty satellite. He calls that mix the right payload for SpaceX.