New Delhi, June 19 -- SpaceX's massive trillion-dollar valuation is built on the dream of AI data centers in space.

Putting data centers in orbit frees them from paying utilities for water and power, as well as complaints from communities that don't want them in their backyards. There's just one problem: Orbital data centers are really expensive.

On Thursday, the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie released an analysis showing that orbital data centers cost three times as much as terrestrial data centers.

"A hypothetical 1 gigawatt orbital data center would cost an estimated $170 billion," the consultant said. Launch and satellite costs account for about $100 billion of that total.

Wood Mackenzie estimates that launch costs would need to f...