By Sherin Shibu

Amazon founder and billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos made headlines at the 2025 Italian Tech Week in Turin, Italy, with an audacious vision of the near future: within the next twenty years, millions of humans may opt to live in space, thanks to revolutionary advancements in robotics, energy, and infrastructure. Discussing this at a fireside chat with John Elkann, CEO of Exor, Bezos laid out not only his personal ambitions but also the swelling momentum of the new space economy — one that could soon touch ordinary citizens, global industry, and the future of Earth itself.

The New Space Age: Life Beyond Earth

Bezos, who famously built Amazon into a $2 trillion global behemoth, has turned increasing attention to his aerospace company, Blue Origin, which he founded in 2000. “In the next couple of decades, I believe there will be millions of people living in space,” he told attendees at the event. He emphasized that this migration would not be born of desperation or necessity, but of optimism, opportunity, and voluntary ambition. “They’ll mostly be living there because they want to,” Bezos insisted, predicting an inflection point in human settlement across the solar system.

While such forecasts may sound daring, they are not without precedent. Since 2020, the space sector has experienced a renaissance, driven by falling launch costs, rapid advances in reusable rocket technology, and surging private and public investment. In 2024 alone, the global space economy surpassed $600 billion, according to the Space Foundation, with commercial activity contributing over 75% of that figure. The sector’s annual growth now rivals tech’s golden era of the late 1990s.

Blue Origin: From Passenger Flights to Cosmic Infrastructure

Bezos’s Blue Origin, after a steady ramp up since its first rocket launch in 2015, has completed over 30 missions, including several high-profile human and scientific flights. Notably, in April 2025, Blue Origin made history by carrying an all-female crew into suborbital space, demonstrating its ambitions for both technological breakthroughs and social milestones.

At Italian Tech Week, Bezos articulated why he believes Blue Origin’s potential far exceeds the current reach of Amazon. “I think it’s going to be the best business that I’ve ever been involved in, but it’s going to take a while,” he said, referencing his long-held view — voiced again at the 2024 New York Times DealBook Summit — that Blue Origin could ultimately become even larger than Amazon in terms of economic and societal impact. While Blue Origin has not disclosed valuation figures, industry analysts estimate its worth is now in the tens of billions, with a roster of government contracts, commercial payloads, and nascent services for lunar infrastructure and orbital manufacturing.

Robots as Space Builders: The Path to Habitats in Orbit

The key to mass settlement in space, Bezos asserts, lies in robotics. “We’ll send robots to do the work,” he explained — a vision increasingly backed by investment in autonomous manufacturing, 3D printing, and remote operations in zero gravity. NASA’s Artemis program, China’s lunar development plans, and private ventures are all experimenting with robotically built habitats and extraction of lunar resources. These precursor missions could lay the groundwork for the giant orbital settlements imagined by visionaries like Bezos and the late Gerard O’Neill, whom Bezos often cites.

The application of AI and robotics in space construction is gathering pace. In 2025, NASA, in partnership with U.S. commercial firms, began field-testing autonomous building modules for use on the Moon and Mars. Meanwhile, Blue Origin’s own research arm is investing in robotic assembly techniques for large orbital structures — a step considered vital for housing thousands, then millions, beyond Earth.

Space Data Centers: Harnessing 24/7 Solar Power

Bezos also predicted a transformative trend for the tech sector: building data centers in orbit. As Big Tech including Google, Amazon, and OpenAI pour billions into AI infrastructure, energy demand for data centers is skyrocketing. By mid-decade, the world’s data centers are projected to consume over 1,000 terawatt-hours annually — more than many industrialized nations.

Space-based data centers, Bezos claims, offer an elegant solution. With perpetual solar power — uninterrupted by clouds or atmosphere — and reduced cooling needs, orbital data farms could become the backbone of the world’s digital metabolism. Several startups, as well as Blue Origin and SpaceX, are actively developing hardware for space-based compute, with major announcements anticipated by the end of the 2020s.

The Billionaire Space Race: Bezos vs. Musk

Bezos’s vision faces rivalry from Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and the world’s richest person, whose focus is on establishing a permanent Mars colony of up to one million settlers. Where Musk dreams of Martian cities, Bezos envisions gigantic orbital habitats supporting trillions of humans and lush artificial environments across the solar system. This friendly, high-stakes competition between billionaires is accelerating progress, drawing fresh capital, talent, and attention to a sector that, until recently, was dominated by slow-moving government agencies.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, at the time of writing, Musk leads the world in net worth ($448 billion), with Bezos following at $243 billion. Yet both see their legacies tied less to wealth and more to catalyzing an era when humanity is no longer confined to Earth.

The Road Ahead: Opportunities and Challenges

For Bezos’s forecast to become reality, several hurdles remain. Human physiology still confronts major risks from long-term microgravity, radiation exposure, and psychological effects of life in isolation. Technical advances in habitat shielding, artificial gravity, and closed-loop life support will be crucial. Moreover, the transition from elite astronaut missions to mass-market, safe, and affordable space flight is only just beginning, with suborbital tickets on Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic still costing several hundred thousand dollars each.

Yet momentum is gathering. In May 2025, Axiom Space launched the first commercial module for the International Space Station, opening the path for orbital tourism, research, and manufacturing. NASA hopes to transition the ISS to commercial management before 2030, while SpaceX and Blue Origin race to develop lunar and cislunar services, including the first operational outposts beyond Earth orbit.

As Bezos told the audience in Turin, “Space will end up being one of the places that keeps making Earth better.” The next decade will determine whether his optimism will bear fruit — and whether millions of people will truly call space their home.