For years, the sprawling warehouses powering artificial intelligence have been built on Earth, consuming enormous amounts of electricity and water and running into resistance from the communities where they are located.
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they → sprawl → communities
Now, some of the technology industry’s biggest names are looking to the skies.
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some → look → skies
Google, SpaceX, and a collection of startups are exploring whether the next generation of AI infrastructure could operate in orbit, powered by the sun and freed from many of the constraints that make terrestrial data centers so controversial.
uncertain
centers → explore → constraints
The idea sounds almost tailor-made for an industry facing difficulty growing on Earth: Put the computers where sunlight is abundant, eliminate the need for massive supplies of cooling water, and avoid the local fights over land, power grids, and noise.
While computers can certainly run in space, the difficulty comes when companies try to build, launch, power, cool, connect, maintain, and eventually replace enough orbital data centers to make a meaningful dent in the infrastructure being built on Earth.
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companies → sound → Earth
“The possibility is of course there,” Amit Verma, an electrical engineering professor at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, told the Washington Examiner.
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Verma → tell → Examiner
“The feasibility and sustainability — those are engineering questions that need to be addressed before this becomes a very viable option.”
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this → need → ?
Nonetheless, Google’s Project Suncatcher envisions interconnected, solar-powered satellites carrying the company’s Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, to perform machine-learning workloads in orbit.
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Suncatcher → envision → orbit
Google is preparing a prototype mission with its first test satellites expected to launch next week.
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satellites → prepare → mission
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has floated an even more ambitious vision of up to one million satellites functioning as orbital data centers.
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Musk → float → centers
Startup Starcloud, meanwhile, has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to deploy as many as 88,000 satellites as a distributed data center, while Blue Origin has proposed its own large orbital computing constellation.
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Origin → ask → constellation
The federal government is taking the concept seriously, too.
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government → take → concept
A Government Accountability Office report published in April identified space-based data centers as a potential way to reduce the resources consumed by data centers on Earth.
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report → publish → Earth
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) also introduced legislation in June that would create a Pentagon pilot program to test commercial orbital data centers for national security applications.
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that → introduce → applications
That interest comes as the public has bucked data centers being built in their communities, and in some cases, their backyards.
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public → come → cases
A September Pew Research Center survey found that 60% of U.S. adults would be uncomfortable with a new data center operating in their area.
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% → find → area
Space could theoretically remove some of those local pressures, but at the same time, it introduces an entirely new set of problems.
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it → remove → problems
Space does not come with free cooling
One of the most counterintuitive challenges is heat.
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One → come → challenges
On Earth, data centers can rely on water-based cooling systems to carry heat away from computing equipment.
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centers → rely → equipment
Instead, a spacecraft has to radiate heat into space.
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spacecraft → have → space
“A data center capable of running AI models could require tens of megawatts of power,” Verma said.
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Verma → run → power
The more electricity the computers consume, the more waste heat they generate, requiring larger systems to radiate that heat away.
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they → consume → heat
Ben Lee, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies computer architecture and sustainable computing, told the Washington Examiner the basic technologies needed to power a spacecraft are well understood.
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technologies → study → spacecraft
The difficulty is combining them at the scale required for an AI data center.
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difficulty → combine → center
“The techniques that we’ve got for air cooling or liquid cooling data centers through cooling towers and evaporative water loss obviously won’t work in a vacuum,” Lee said.
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Lee → get → vacuum
“So we need a strategy for cooling the data centers.”
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we → need → centers
Radiation presents another issue.
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Radiation → present → issue
Computer chips designed for terrestrial data centers are not built to operate indefinitely in the harsh radiation environment of space.
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chips → design → space
“We can’t just take something off the shelf that we’ve designed for terrestrial data centers, launch it into space, and expect it to perform in the same way,” Lee said.
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Lee → take → way
Companies can shield hardware or develop radiation-resistant components, but both approaches add complexity, weight or cost.
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approaches → shield → complexity
AI hardware is evolving at a pace that is difficult to reconcile with the logistics of orbital infrastructure.
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that → evolve → infrastructure
“The technology changes every couple of years,” Verma said.
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Verma → change → years
“The GPUs that you have there…will become obsolete in two [or] three years.
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you → have → years
They need to be replaced.”
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They → need → ?
In a terrestrial data center, replacing an obsolete GPU means sending a truck to the facility, rather than launching more replacement infrastructure into space.
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replacing → replace → space
The economics of orbital data centers depend on the cost of getting enormous amounts of hardware into orbit and, additionally, keeping it there.
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economics → depend → it
GAO noted that large-scale deployment would require advances not only in computing, cooling, and communications but also in manufacturing and launch capacity.
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deployment → note → manufacturing
The agency said some companies envision constellations of thousands of satellites, while projects designed to process data generated in space are substantially closer to technological maturity than massive orbital facilities designed to train AI models.
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projects → say → models
Karen Howard, director of science and technology assessment at GAO, told the Washington Examiner the current launch industry is nowhere near the scale that would be required for the largest proposals.
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that → tell → proposals
The FAA projects roughly 200 launches in 2026, Howard said, while some orbital data center concepts contemplate tens of thousands, or even millions, of satellites.
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concepts → project → satellites
“Even if industry can develop data centers (small or large) for space, it doesn’t have the manufacturing and launch capacity, and related ability to reduce the cost of launch, that would be necessary to meaningfully replace or even significantly supplement Earth-based data centers yet,” Howard said.
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Howard → develop → centers
…and 30 more, not listed.
The Aporia
