TAMPA, Fla. - Investor attention is starting to drift upward toward orbital data centers, even though the giant floating server farms proposed by SpaceX and others are still roughly as real as a unicorn with a NASA patch.

Delian Asparouhov, a partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund, said April 30 during a SpaceNews event in Washington, D.C., that he wouldn't be foolish enough to compete directly with SpaceX in the orbital computing market - or, frankly, in any area the company considers its turf. But he did point to potential opportunities for companies that build the infrastructure around it, which for now is mostly aimed at AI computing workloads back on Earth.

Asparouhov, who also cofounded and serves as president of returnable spacecraft developer Varda Space Industries, admitted he was initially skeptical of orbital data centers because of the sheer scale and cost involved. SpaceX has filed plans for up to one million orbital data centers, which would at first likely serve internal compute needs at Elon Musk's AI company xAI and electric carmaker Tesla. Meanwhile, two-year-old startup Starcloud is seeking approval for 88,000 orbital data centers, targeting customers who want their own computing services in space.

According to Asparouhov, lower launch costs and maturing technology over the next decade have made the business case more compelling. Political pressure on terrestrial data centers is another factor - he noted growing populist opposition on both the left and right in the United States that could lead to stricter development restrictions.

Founders Fund, an early SpaceX investor that has also backed AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic, hasn't yet made what Asparouhov called a "real lunar investment." But that could change if orbital data centers create demand for new infrastructure - for example, autonomous lunar ice mines that would need nearby computing capacity to process data and operate 24/7. That's a capability that would greatly benefit from orbital data centers, he said, while remaining outside SpaceX's core focus.

Founders Fund has also invested in Crusoe, an AI infrastructure provider and early Starcloud customer. Still, Asparouhov cautioned that the orbital data center market depends heavily on launch capacity - particularly whether Starship and other heavy-lift vehicles can frequently place large amounts of mass in orbit at much lower cost. Other unresolved challenges include power generation, thermal management, regulation, and whether demand for space-based compute actually develops at the scale proponents expect, amid concerns over a potential AI bubble back on Earth.