Google Takes Data Centers to the Stars to Solve Earthbound Problems

Google has famously branded its high-risk, high-cost megaprojects moonshots. That label applies almost literally to its latest one. The tech titan yesterday announced plans to launch a satellite into space that will attempt to process AI queries above the Kármán Line. Eventually, the goal is to launch dozens of satellites that together will act like an AI data center.

The lofty ambitions are grounded in harsh realities down on the ground, as tech companies fight for data-center real estate and vast amounts of water and electricity — and as a growing number of constituencies fight them off. 

The Brave Little Refrigerator

Google’s satellite, roughly the size of a refrigerator, contains four AI chips called tensor processing units that together have about as much compute power as a single server at a data center. Phase two of Project Suncatcher will involve launching a duo of AI satellites next year to test how well they communicate with each other using lasers...