Google boss confirms plans for orbital data centers by 2027

Reviving its old tradition of “Moonshots”, Google is apparently working on a bold new idea: data centers orbiting the Earth as satellites. The company’s latest ambition is expected to become operational by 2027, following in the footsteps of Nvidia, which recently worked with the startup “Starcloud” to launch a similar project.

In an interview with Fox News last weekend, Google CEO Sundar Pichai spoke about the newly revealed Project Suncatcher, which aims to develop more efficient ways to power energy-intensive data centers using solar energy, potentially making them more sustainable than existing terrestrial facilities.

Google expects its initial space-based data centers to start limited operations in 2027. As part of its partnership with Planet Labs, the company plans to send “tiny racks of machines” into orbit on two prototype satellites. Pichai also mentioned that he expects off-world data centers to become relatively common within the next decade, with companies eventually building large gigawatt-scale facilities in space to meet the rapidly increasing demand for AI computing.

The company announced Project Suncatcher last month, labeling it as the most promising method for tackling the huge power use of AI-focused data centers. The initiative is described as a “research moonshot” aimed at using solar energy to power swarms of satellites equipped with Tensor Processing Units that communicate via laser links instead of fiber connections.

A 2024 report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that U.S. data centers already use more than 4% of the country’s electricity, putting heavy pressure on power grids, increasing energy costs, and sparking protests in rural communities. That figure is expected to reach 12% by 2028 as AI-driven workloads continue to rise.

Google argues that relocating machine-learning compute to space could not only meet the massive energy needs of AI data centers but also do so more sustainably by replacing thermal power with solar energy.

The company has expressed strong confidence in the project and released a preprint paper detailing its plan to build a connected constellation of solar-powered satellites running TPU-based AI chips.

Google is not alone in its enthusiasm for extraterrestrial data centers. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently said he believes solar-powered data centers in space will become commonplace within the next 20 years and will likely be more cost-effective than their Earth-based counterparts.