Google To Launch AI Data Centres In Space — How It Will Work

Google is planning to launch solar-powered satellites containing AI data centre infrastructure in accordance with a programme it has named 'Project Suncatcher'.

According to a blog post and research paper from the company shared on Wednesday, the firm has discovered that up to 80 satellites can be launched into orbit 400 miles above the earth.

"The Sun is the ultimate energy source in our solar system, emitting more power than 100 trillion times humanity’s total electricity production. In the right orbit, a solar panel can be up to eight times more productive than on earth, and produce power nearly continuously, reducing the need for batteries. In the future, space may be the best place to scale AI compute," Travis Beals, Senior Director, Paradigms of Intelligence at Google said in a blog post.

The satellites can conserve the earth's resources by running on solar energy in lieu of batteries which could help conserve electricity, water, minerals and other critical resources on earth.

It will undertake this by using solar panels that are eight times more productive than the ones on Earth.

These satellites will use Google Cloud Tensor Processing Units which act as AI accelerators for training and inference along with optical links which will send results back using laser beams to transmit info.

"Our new research moonshot, Project Suncatcher, envisions compact constellations of solar-powered satellites, carrying Google TPUs and connected by free-space optical links. This approach would have tremendous potential for scale, and also minimizes impact on terrestrial resources," Beals added.

Google is planning to launch its first trial equipment into space by 2027. Reports have pointed out that despite its efforts to reduce the toll on natural resources that AI takes, space launches emit hundreds of tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The launch costs seem to be steep as of now for the company, but it has also estimated that launch costs will substantially reduce by the mid 2030s.

"Historically, high launch costs have been a primary barrier to large-scale space-based systems. However, our analysis of historical and projected launch pricing data suggests that with a sustained learning rate, prices may fall to less than $200/kg by the mid-2030s," Beals stated

" At that price point, the cost of launching and operating a space-based data center could become roughly comparable to the reported energy costs of an equivalent terrestrial data center on a per-kilowatt/year basis," he added.