Elon Musk wants to put data centers in space — here's what that could actually look like.

SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) founder Elon Musk has said that he wants to put data centers in space. One industry founder told Yahoo Finance how it would actually work. While the idea brings to mind massive buildings floating aimlessly through the cosmos, Christopher Stott, founder of Lonestar Data Holdings, a sovereign data storage company, told Yahoo Finance that the architecture of space-based computing is more akin to satellites orbiting in a tight, synchronized formation. "Imagine a big data center that's made out of Legos, and then you split those Lego bricks into all the individual bricks and have them fly in space right next to each other, and they all connect," Stott said. The connection is formed through optical lasers and radio frequencies. Lonestar is part of Nvidia's (NVDA) Inception program, which grants early-stage ventures access to AI chips and support so they can build and scale faster. Since August 2021, Lonestar has launched four test data center payloads into space — two to the International Space Station and two to the lunar surface. Lonestar customers include governments, NGOs, and social media companies. The biggest incentive to scale AI data centers in space is cost, Stott explained.