Elon Musk's proposal for SpaceX to launch up to a million AI data centre satellites (AI1) would create an unprecedented form of electronic waste, according to an analysis by Ars Technica. Because data centre GPUs typically last only around five years, roughly 200,000 satellites would need decommissioning annually, with the materials either burning up in the atmosphere or being pushed into distant "disposal" orbits—either way permanently removing valuable resources from Earth's material cycle. The scheme highlights an unusual reversal of the space industry's usual narrative of mining asteroids for precious metals, instead proposing to export them off-world.

Based on SpaceX's 29 May FCC filing, about 40,000 satellites a year would deorbit and burn up, dispersing materials like aluminium through the atmosphere and potentially causing unknown ozone depletion, while the remaining 160,000 would be shunted into disposal orbits. Using conservative estimates based on Nvidia A100 GPU chemistry, the annual losses could include 1,000 tonnes of copper, 170kg of gold, nearly 2 tonnes of silver, over 20 tonnes each of bismuth and titanium, and 76kg of thallium—amounting to roughly 1% of global annual palladium and thallium production. The article notes some of these losses are equivalent to the metal content of small asteroids, underscoring the scale of resources being permanently discarded.