Putting data centres in space isn't going to happen any time soon
From massive solar panels to the difficulty of staying cool - not to mention high-energy radiation - there are a lot of engineering problems that need to be solved before we can build data centres in space
Starcloud wants to build a data centre satellite that is 4 kilometres by 4 kilometres
Starcloud
Could AI’s insatiable thirst for colossal data centres be fixed by launching them into space? Tech companies are eyeing low Earth orbit as a potential solution, but researchers say it’s unlikely in the near future due to a mountain of difficult and unsolved engineering issues.
The huge demand for, and investment in, generative AI products like ChatGPT has created an unprecedented need for computing power, which requires both vast amounts of space and gigawatts of power, equivalent to that used by millions of homes. As a result, data centres are increasingly fuelled by unsustainable sources, like natural gas, with tech companies arguing that renewable power can neither produce the amount of power needed nor the consistency required for reliable use.
To solve this, tech CEOs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have suggested launching data centres into orbit, where they could be powered by solar panels with constant access to a higher level of sunlight than on Earth. Earlier this year, Bezos, who alongside founding Amazon also owns space company Blue Origin, said that he envisions gigawatt data centres in space within 10 to 20 years.
Google has more concrete and accelerated plans for data centres in space, with a pilot program called Project Suncatcher aiming to launch two prototype satellites carrying its TPU AI chips in 2027. Perhaps the most advanced experiment in data processing in space so far, however, was the launch of a single H100 graphics processing unit this year by an Nvidia-backed company called Starcloud.
This is nowhere near enough computing power to run modern AI systems. OpenAI, for example, is thought to have a million such chips at its disposal, but reaching this scale in orbit will require tech firms to tackle a number of unsolved challenges. “From an academic research perspective, [space data centres] are nowhere near production level,” says Benjamin Lee at the University of Pennsylvania, US.
One of the largest problems with no obvious solution is the sheer physical size necessitated by AI’s computational demand, says Lee. This is both because of the amount of power that would be needed from solar panels, which would require a vast surface area, and the necessity of radiating away heat produced by the chips, which is the only option for cooling in space, where there is no air. “You’re not able to evaporatively cool them like you are on Earth, blowing cool air over them,” says Lee.