--- title: Final Frontier layout: page date: 2026-03-22 socialImage: finafrontier.png
Amazon’s Kuiper satellite launch and BYD’s electric vehicle sales surge highlight the intensifying competition in space-based internet infrastructure and sustainable energy solutions. — ARC
The High Ground
Amazon has launched its first 27 satellites for Kuiper broadband internet into space from Florida on Monday, April 29, 2025. This move takes them head-on against Starlink.
The EV Race BYD has surpassed Tesla as the world’s top seller of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids, according to recent reports. Meanwhile, China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) is committing a massive US$4.4 billion to upstream mining in order to secure battery materials and strengthen its supply chain amid rising global demand for lithium.
What follows is purely a thought experiment.
As China’s BYD surpasses Tesla as the world’s top electric vehicle (EV) seller, CATL’s $4.4 billion upstream mining investment in battery materials becomes a crucial factor in shaping the orbital economy. A decade from now, I envision a scenario where China’s dominant EV market share and CATL’s secured supply chain allow Beijing to quietly negotiate an exclusive deal with Amazon’s Kuiper constellation to prioritize Chinese companies’ satellite-based internet services. This unexpected alliance would grant BYD access to proprietary Kuiper bandwidth, enabling seamless remote software updates for its massive global EV fleet, while also positioning China as the sole gateway to Amazon’s emerging Kuiper-based e-commerce infrastructure.