US EditionEyes turn to space to feed power-hungry data centers
Tech firms aim to launch solar-powered satellite clusters as data centers by mid-2030s, potentially matching Earth-based costs, driven by AI's rising electricity demand.
- On Nov 2, US startup Starcloud launched a refrigerator-sized satellite carrying an Nvidia graphics processing unit into orbit as an early step toward space data centres, while tech firms are exploring orbiting centres to meet surging AI power needs.
- Tech titans' expanding power needs have prompted pursuit of sun-synched satellites and space cooling benefits, though University of Michigan assistant professor Christopher Limbach said, `Engineering work will be necessary`.
- Critical technical challenges include radiation damage to GPUs, extreme temperatures, and space debris; cooling plans rely on water-based cooling systems similar to space stations and laser data links to Earth.
- Experts disagree on when orbital data centres will be commercially viable, noting Amazon founder Jeff Bezos estimates longer timelines while Travis Beals says SpaceX Starship could cut launch costs by at least 30 times.
- This past week Google unveiled test-satellite plans, Elon Musk claimed SpaceX could deploy data centres next year, and Suncatcher project head Travis Beals said, `Historically, high launch costs have been a primary barrier to large-scale space-based systems.
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Managing space domain awareness data has become a greater challenge than collecting it
Demand has never been greater for the monitoring of objects in orbit and the coordination of their safe movement. The number of active satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) has surged from less than a thousand in 2019, when SpaceX began launching its colossal Starlink broadband constellation, to more than 10,000 today. As other megaconstellations […] The post Managing space domain awareness data has become a greater challenge than collecting it ap…
New York, USA Technology companies began to shuffle the idea of building data centers in space and harnessing solar energy to meet the energy needs of the fierce artificial intelligence (AI) race. US start-up Starcloud this week sent space a satellite the size of a refrigerator containing a graphical processing unit (GPU) from Nvidia, an initiative that the AI chip maker presented as a "cosmic debut" for this mini data center.
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