I recently listened to Elon Musk lay out his vision for the future of AI, energy, and data centers. It’s ambitious, technically rigorous, and—importantly—rooted in physics rather than hype.
At its core, Musk is making a simple argument:
AI is not constrained by algorithms. It’s constrained by energy.
Chip production is scaling exponentially. Electricity generation is not. Permitting, manufacturing capacity, grid timelines, and political friction all slow the growth of terrestrial power. From that perspective, his conclusion makes sense: if Earth can’t scale power fast enough, move AI compute to space, where solar is constant, regulation is minimal, and batteries aren’t needed.
That logic is internally consistent. And frankly, it confirms something many of us who work in infrastructure have been saying for years: the hard limits are physical, not digital.
Where I diverge from Musk isn’t on the diagnosis—it’s on the layer of the problem he’s solving.
Elon is optimizing for the global maximum. I spend my time focused on what happens below that ceiling.
Most communities, especially rural ones, aren’t deciding where to put trillion-parameter training models. They’re grappling with much more immediate questions:
- Can we get reliable power in under five years?
- Will this load destabilize emergency services?
- Does this development fit the land, the workforce, and the culture?
- Who benefits if it succeeds—and who bears the risk if it doesn’t?
From that vantage point, “put it in orbit” isn’t an answer. It’s a reminder.
Even if AI training eventually migrates to space, nearly everything that enables it still starts on Earth: manufacturing, energy equipment, fiber, skilled trades, logistics, and governance. And inference, edge computing, industrial control, public safety systems, and local resilience will remain stubbornly terrestrial.
That’s where communities still have leverage—if they choose to exercise it.
Another area where I strongly agree with Musk is his emphasis on truth-seeking AI. Systems that are optimized to avoid offense or obscure reality eventually fail operationally. That’s not a philosophical concern; it’s an engineering one. Debuggable systems, transparency, and alignment with reality matter far more than narratives. Infrastructure people learn that lesson early, usually the hard way.
Where I’m more cautious is around governance. Musk is deeply skeptical of government, and for understandable reasons. But at the local level, governance is often the only mechanism communities have to retain agency. The answer isn’t unchecked power—public or private—it’s visibility, limits, and accountability at the ground level.
In that sense, Musk’s vision doesn’t make rural planning less important. It makes it more urgent.
Because the future is being built whether communities participate or not. And the places that organize early—around power, connectivity, workforce, and fit-first development—will still matter, even in a world where some of the compute leaves the planet.
Elon is solving for what comes next.
The rest of us are responsible for making sure what’s here still works.
