Technology and Space
Bill Gates and Elon Musk Collaborate for the Marriage of Space with Technology
The partnership between Azure and SpaceX appears promising in the space journey.
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Our cognitive flexibility finds ways to reach out to other planets. Government organizations in several countries heavily fund space programs. So far, governments have monopolized these programs.
However, technology is making space programs available to commercial entities, not just the government anymore. Recently, commercial organizations joined the race. Thus, we observe a democratization movement in space programs.
One of the prominent space initiatives is led by Elon Musk. He has a vision of human life on Mars. Nonetheless, his vision is not just thought or imagination anymore. He makes significant investments in space programs and makes tangible progress. For example, SpaceX is a comprehensive program.
In this post, I aim to introduce the contributions of technology infrastructure to space programs by presenting the partnership between two extraordinary leaders of the century as an example.
Bill Gates has a long history of innovation and disrupting the market, starting with his Windows programs in 1986.
As a result of acceptance and demand for his products, Gates became one of the wealthiest people on earth, and his company has become the most prominent technology organization globally.
As of 2020, Microsoft’s market capitalization reached $1.97 trillion, according to Statista.
Elon Musk is younger than Bill Gates; however, he has become more prosperous than Gates recently. In fact, in 2021, Musk became the first person who had a wealth of $300 Billion, leaving Jeff Bezos as the second richest person, according to CBS News.
Both Gates and Musk are globally recognized leaders with proven track records. However, their collaboration might create even more significant synergies. They are different characters with different leadership styles and business goals.
However, they also have common goals and interests. For example, Gate might not like approving Tesla and prefer using other car brands, but he is not hesitant to push his Azure product as a catalyst for Musk’s SpaceX program.
Microsoft as a partner in the SpaceX program, understands the value proposition of this program as the first of a kind in human history and is expected to change the destiny of humanity in profound ways.
Elon Musk has intensive plans for space. For example, according to SpaceNews, Elon Musk predicts the first Starship orbital launch in early 2022. Musk expects the first launch in January or February early next year.
Of course, the risk of failure is relatively high in this attempt, but Musk remains optimistic as he sees this attempt as a learning lesson for making humans interplanetary creatures.
You might wonder what Microsoft could bring to the table in this partnership. Many people still associate Microsoft with their Windows operating system and office products. As a former consultant with this company, I witnessed their progress over three decades.
The most recent progress Microsoft marked in the industry is the Azure product line, an integrated system based on Cloud computing.
Azure is part of Microsoft’s “Intelligent Cloud” business covering computing, storage, database, monitoring, content delivery network, web, and mobile services.
Microsoft’s contributions to sustainability are exemplary by embracing the future of infrastructure.
For example, using Microsoft Azure is 98% more carbon-efficient than using a traditional enterprise data center.
Moreover, Microsoft is committed to being carbon negative by 2030, with the commitment by 2050 to remove all the carbon, as reported on the Global Infrastructure site.
The perception of crashing Windows systems still prevails on the market. Nevertheless, Microsoft made remarkable progress in running mission-critical systems with confidence.
For example, Azure provides enterprise-grade Cloud infrastructure on which customers and partners can rely.
This initiative includes “physical elements such as redundant power, networking, and cooling, as well as software elements such as safe deployment processes, ineffective maintenance, and failure prediction enabled by machine learning.”
More interestingly, Azure helped Microsoft to make a giant leap in Cloud computing in 2021. The company reached 20 billion in sales for the first time, showing a 36% increase in market capital, as reported by CRN.
As pointed out by Satya Nadella (CEO), “The case for digital transformation has never been more urgent or clearer.”
One of the reasons for Azure’s impact was the physical component comprising 200+ physical data centers, arranged into regions and linked by one of the largest interconnected networks on the planet.
The Azure global network includes the Microsoft global wide-area network (WAN), points of presence (PoPs), fiber, and connectivity capabilities.
What makes Azure a good candidate for the space program is the ultra-low-latency access for big data and connectivity requirements.
Azure Edge Zone provides compute, storage, and services such as containers at the edge. I introduced edge computing in an article titled Power of the Edge Computing: An Innovative Extension to the Cloud Computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the Big Data Analytics.
Elon’s vision of colonizing Mars requires a robust infrastructure on earth. So, considering the recent developments, Azure looks like a viable candidate for creating this capability.
In addition, Azure’s architecture, design, and deployment are unique to supporting mission-critical systems. So it is a piece of exciting news that Microsoft is creating an ecosystem for space. Besides, it aims to cover both the “on the planet” and “off the planet” approach.
Microsoft, since its inception, has been big on partnership. For example, SES, as a leader in global content connectivity solutions, is partnering with Microsoft to ensure the secure, reliable delivery of Azure services into any market.
“SES’s relationship with Microsoft will help drive customers’ digital transformations with seamless cloud connectivity and content solutions. SES’s resilient, highly available network is optimized for high-performance peering with Microsoft Azure, providing access to the Cloud from anywhere in the world.”
The partnership between SpaceX and Azure cloud will enable the creation of satellite Internet to connect with Starlink, which provides high-speed, low-latency broadband internet across the globe.
Microsoft is also heavy-duty in artificial intelligence (AI).
As communicated by Harry Shum, Executive Vice-President of Microsoft’s AI and Research Group,
“Microsoft’s vision for AI is about people. It’s about amplifying human ingenuity through intelligent technology that will reason with, understand, and interact with people and, together with people, help us solve some of society’s most fundamental challenges.”
Microsoft introduced a program called AI for Earth.
Its purpose is to put the power of AI towards solving some of the most significant environmental challenges of our time.
“As a technology company with a deep commitment to sustainability (water, agriculture, biodiversity, and climate change), Microsoft understands that our responsibility extends beyond operations to innovating towards a healthier and better future more broadly.”
As I pointed out in this article with Jack Ma’s interview, Elon Musk is also big on AI. He co-founded OpenAI, which is a machine-learning nonprofit organization.
OpenAI uses reinforcement learning, allowing a computer to learn tasks by extreme trial and error. Microsoft also collaborates in this initiative. For example, the Azure OpenAI service provides contact to GPT-3 language models with Azure’s enterprise capabilities.
Despite disagreement between Gates and Musk on Tesla and the future of civilizations, Microsoft’s serving as a productive partner and service contractor teaming up in the SpaceX program looks promising in the program’s growth with a robust technology infrastructure empowered with AI.
Despite their public debates, Gates and Musk collaborate to achieve mutual dreams to take humanity to the next level in this space journey. As a service-oriented company, Microsoft listens to customers carefully. Subsequently, Elon Musk is a lucrative customer that Bill Gates cannot ignore.
These two global leaders seem to learn to agree in disagreement. Both leaders are passionate and visionary with different sets of capabilities. Their partnership looks complementary in space and technology marriage for our journey to becoming interplanetary species.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
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