Google and SpaceX are in talks to launch orbital data centers as part of Google's Project Suncatcher

Google and SpaceX are in talks for launching its Project Suncatcher, a plan to put data centers in space.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the news on Tuesday morning. Later, Reuters also cited Google confirming the talks with SpaceX and other companies. The tech giant wants to build a network of solar-powered satellites carrying its Tensor Processing Units to create what it calls an orbital AI cloud.

The talks come as SpaceX prepares for a highly anticipated stock market debut that company insiders say will need serious money to fund the orbital data center project. Musk helped start OpenAI back in 2015 because he worried about Google’s AI work.

He had fallen out with Google co-founder Larry Page over questions about AI safety. Now, both SpaceX and Google are racing to be first with data centers in space. Building these orbital facilities is a big reason SpaceX wants to go public.

The work will cost a lot and push current technology to its limits. Just last week, AI company Anthropic said it would use all the computing power at SpaceX’s Colossus 1 center in Memphis. Anthropic also said it wants to work with SpaceX on building several gigawatts worth of data centers in space.

Musk wrote in February that “Anthropic hates Western Civilization.” But by Wednesday, he changed his mind. He posted on X that he spent a lot of time with Anthropic’s top people over the past week and said he was impressed with what he learned.

Industry rush to Space

As reported by Cryptopolitan previously, SpaceX filed papers with the Federal Communications Commission asking permission to launch up to one million data centers into orbit around Earth. The company says this would let AI grow without causing environmental problems on the ground.

SpaceX is not alone in this push. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said last year that tech companies will move their big computing operations to space. Google plans to send up 80 data-processing satellites as soon as next year.

A Washington State startup called Starcloud already launched a satellite last November with a high-end Nvidia H100 chip on board. It was the first time an advanced AI chip was tested in orbit. Starcloud thinks it can have data centers in space as big as the ones on Earth by 2030.

Space data centers dream meets technical reality

Supporters say space-based data centers make sense. The AI boom is putting heavy pressure on power grids and water supplies. Computer cooling uses huge amounts of water. People living near big data centers worry about rising costs for electricity and water.

In space, those problems go away, supporters argue. Satellites in certain orbits get constant sunlight, giving them non-stop solar power. The cold vacuum of space would soak up excess heat. And with launch costs dropping, especially with big rockets like SpaceX’s Starship, the economics might work out.

But critics point to serious obstacles that may not be solved anytime soon, as mentioned in an MIT review.

Heat management poses a major challenge as orbital data centers would reach 80 degrees Celsius, according to Lilly Eichinger from Satellives, though Yves Durand from Thales Alenia Space said his 2024 study found gigawatt-scale facilities possible before 2050.

Ken Mai from Carnegie Mellon said radiation damages chips, while Greg Vialle from Lunexus Space noted low Earth orbit can safely hold only 240,000 satellites, making SpaceX’s one million plan difficult without a unified network.

On the ground, Google is talking with Marvell Technology about making two new AI chips, The Information reported Sunday.

One chip would handle memory processing alongside Google’s tensor processing units. The other would be a new tensor processing unit built just for running AI models. The companies hope to finish designing the memory chip next year before sending it for test production.

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