Saturday, Elon Musk made a long post to his social media site, X, discussing a future where AI computation is moved to satellites for quicker relays. In it, he mentioned the upgrade to a “Kardashev II civilization.” What is a type II civilization?
It’s been a while since we just covered a random tweet… now just posts… from SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, because some can be quite crazy. Yesterday, the billionaire discussed the move of AI onto satellites and the benefits it could mean for scaling the industry faster.
The post shares that the AI industry is facing a problem: finding power here on Earth. This has become a well-known topic, as AI data centers consume a large amount of power, becoming adversaries to locals who don’t want to risk their energy bills. Musk’s plan of moving AI to space is his and others’ solution.
“And by far the fastest way to scale within four years, because easy sources of electrical power are already hard to find on Earth. One megaton per year of satellites with 100 kW per satellite yields 100 GW of AI added per year.”
What does “100GW of AI” mean, you may ask? Or maybe just “1GW of AI”? I honestly do not know, as the tech-bro discussion is already over my head.
Musk ended the post with “That scales to >100TW/year of AI and enables non-trivial progress towards becoming a Kardashev II civilization.”
What is a Type II civilization, you may ask? Well, I’m glad you asked, even though I could assume you already asked since you’re on this page.
A Type II civilization is one of three classifications created in 1964 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev based on a civilization’s energy consumption. Below are the three types Kardashev cited in his studies:
- Type I – a civilization that can consume all the energy that reaches its planet from its local star.
- Type II – a civilization that can consume all the energy from its home star.
- Type III – a civilization that can consume all the energy from its home galaxy.
For now, some classify Earth as a Type 1 civilization, but not fully, as we do not consume 100% of our Sun’s energy. Some, like Carl Sagan, referred to Earth as Type 0.7, and others describe it as between Type 0 (not within Kardashev’s original proposals) and Type I.
How this plays out with AI and Elon’s wish for more satellite manufacturing, I have no idea. Although I’m sure Starship would perform well in a market with the need to launch hundreds of thousands of new satellites a year.
What would it take for Earth to get to Type II? Most state the construction of a Dyson sphere around our Sun. These spheres are massive structures that surround a solar system’s parent star, collecting and using a star’s energy. Right now, we only capture a fraction of the energy our Sun puts out through solar panels on Earth’s surface and through satellites.
Some astronomers believe Type I status could be achieved between 2100 and 3000 if we work hard at using our yearly energy consumption. Type II and III would be challenging classifications to reach, and some believe it’s impossible to become a Type III without us already knowing they exist.
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