The moonshot thought of placing AI knowledge facilities into outer house simply moved one step nearer to actuality, regardless of doubts about its feasibility.
Final week, Google’s Undertaking Suncatcher launched a refrigerator-sized satellite tv for pc carrying 4 AI chips into orbit on a SpaceX rocket, in an early check of whether or not the know-how behind right now’s power-hungry knowledge facilities may sometime function in house.
The satellite tv for pc, developed in partnership with Planet Labs, took off on Oct. 1 and is working as anticipated, based on a Google weblog submit. The purpose of the mission is to see how Google’s customized TPU chips deal with the extreme vibrations of launch in addition to the “radiation and thermal extremes of house,” the corporate mentioned. The satellite tv for pc will conduct experiments in low Earth orbit for a couple of yr, the New York Instances reported.
Google’s satellite tv for pc is powered by photo voltaic panels that harness power from the solar. As a result of house makes it tough to dissipate warmth utilizing water or followers, Google’s researchers designed a system of warmth pipes and radiators to maintain the chips from overheating. Nonetheless, the satellite tv for pc’s cooling capabilities imply Google will run their chips for quarter-hour at a time earlier than shutting them down to chill off, NPR reported.
Nevertheless early the experiment could be, the launch is a milestone for an rising know-how that has the potential to assist meet AI’s rising demand for compute whereas avoiding the constraints on assets like energy, water, and land on Earth. As corporations pour billions of {dollars} into constructing out terrestrial knowledge facilities, and have confronted backlash from group members and politicians within the course of, constructing AI infrastructure in house appears more and more enticing.
The thought of orbital knowledge facilities gained mainstream consideration in early 2026 when SpaceX, led by perennial tech optimist Elon Musk, filed plans with the Federal Communications Fee to launch a community of as much as 1 million data-center satellites in house.
“The bottom-cost place to place AI can be house, and that can be true inside two years, perhaps three, three on the newest,” Musk mentioned on the World Financial Discussion board in January.
Jeff Bezos’s house firm Blue Origin in March additionally filed a proposal to deploy 51,600 satellites in a satellite tv for pc community dubbed Undertaking Dawn.
But, earlier than the idea went mainstream, Google was already working to make it a actuality. In November 2025, it launched Undertaking Suncatcher, to discover “how an interconnected community of solar-powered satellites, outfitted with our Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) AI chips, may harness the complete energy of the Solar.”
With its current launch, it has taken a big step towards proving out the orbital knowledge heart idea at the same time as consultants have warned of main obstacles forward.
For one, working knowledge facilities in house would require huge photo voltaic arrays to seize the solar’s rays and switch it into power. These giant and heavy arrays, together with different tools, can be costly to move to house, Jeff Thornburg, the CEO of Portal Area Methods, beforehand advised Fortune. The costly price ticket stays an impediment, regardless of SpaceX, which transports the vast majority of payloads into house, having minimize its estimated launch prices by 95% since 2008 to about $1,000 per kilogram, based on analysis from Cathie Wooden’s ARK Make investments.
One other issue is the impact of radiation on the chips powering the info facilities which might trigger errors. That is one thing Google is learning with its Undertaking Suncatcher satellite tv for pc. Though Google mentioned it examined its chips on Earth and located they “can survive a radiation complete ionizing dose better than what they’d obtain throughout a five-year house mission,” the corporate acknowledged that photo voltaic occasions and cosmic rays pose a danger.
There’s additionally the query of repairing tools, which is rather more tough in house.
Nonetheless, Google isn’t the one firm already testing AI chips in orbit. Final November, startup Starcloud launched a satellite tv for pc carrying certainly one of Nvidia’s high-powered H100 chips into house and confirmed it may use the chip to run Google’s light-weight AI mannequin, Gemma.
One other startup, Cowboy Area Corp., based by Robinhood cofounder Baiju Bhatt, additionally launched a satellite tv for pc aboard the identical SpaceX rocket as Google final week.
The satellite tv for pc, referred to as Motive-1, plans to check sending photo voltaic power all the way down to Earth utilizing a strong laser. The corporate has established contact with the satellite tv for pc and is getting ready to exhibit its know-how for the primary time within the coming weeks, Bhatt mentioned in an interview with Bloomberg printed Thursday. Bhatt additionally mentioned Cowboy Area’s final ambition is to construct a car to place knowledge heart payloads into house.
The Oct. 1 launch is just the start of Google’s ambitions with orbital knowledge facilities.
The corporate is planning to ship two extra satellites into house in 2027 to check how they will talk by way of lasers, which it mentioned in a weblog submit requires precision “much like hitting a coin-size goal from miles away whereas each factors are in movement.”
Nonetheless, the final word dream of placing knowledge facilities into house could not come to fruition even within the subsequent few years, James Manyika, Google’s senior vice chairman for analysis, advised the New York Instances.
“Keep in mind how Google was researching for like 15 years, earlier than something confirmed up? I feel that is going to appear to be that,” he mentioned.
