{"id":37784,"date":"2025-11-05T08:53:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T08:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/google-wants-to-build-a-data-center-that-harnesses-the-power-of-the-sun-in-space\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T08:53:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T08:53:23","slug":"google-wants-to-build-a-data-center-that-harnesses-the-power-of-the-sun-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/google-wants-to-build-a-data-center-that-harnesses-the-power-of-the-sun-in-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Google wants to build a data center that harnesses the power of the sun &mdash; in space"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/690a7a390be9845f2dc5ba9f?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Tanks containing coolant for servers are seen at a Google Data center in Saint Ghislain\"\/><figcaption>Google is testing the feasibility of sending data centers to space that could run on the power of the sun.<\/p>\n<p>REUTERS\/Yves Herman<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Google is testing a new project that could harness the sun to power data centers in space.<\/li>\n<li>Google&#039;s own research shows that space-based data centers could avoid draining resources on Earth.<\/li>\n<li>SpaceX and other startups are exploring similar ideas.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Google is joining a new kind of space race.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, CEO Sundar Pichai announced Project Suncatcher, a &quot;research moonshot&quot; that would deploy satellites equipped with Google&#039;s custom Tensor Processing Units, which already power many of Google&#039;s AI models.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Inspired by our history of moonshots, from quantum computing to autonomous driving,&quot; Pichar wrote on X, &quot;Project Suncatcher is exploring how we could one day build scalable ML compute systems in space, harnessing more of the sun&#039;s power.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Pichar added that the sun emits more power than 100 trillion times humanity&#039;s total electricity production, and that Google plans to launch two prototype satellites in early 2027, each carrying Trillium-generation TPUs to test their performance in low-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n<p>Although the TPU chips withstood radiation simulations in a particle accelerator, Google still faces hurdles ahead. According to Google&#039;s research paper, which Pichai posted in a thread, the final product would involve fleets of solar-powered satellites connected by optical links to exchange data, said the paper. Pichai said in the X post that thermal management and reliability are both challenging.<\/p>\n<p>If the tech giant could pull off the design challenge, its research paper argues that space-based computing could one day become a scalable solution, because it would run without draining electricity and water on Earth. Google&#039;s analysis also finds that by the mid-2030s, the cost to launch rockets could drop below $200 per kilogram, which potentially makes sending a data center into space cheaper than building one on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Google isn&#039;t the only company pursuing this idea. Elon Musk, who owns SpaceX, said on X on October 31 that the rocket company could build data centers for AI in space, while a startup called Starcloud launched its first satellite equipped with Nvidia&#039;s GPU earlier in November.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Great idea lol,&quot; Musk commented on X under the Project Suncatcher&#039;s announcement.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Only possible because of SpaceX&#039;s massive advances in launch technology!&quot; Pichai responded.<\/p>\n<p>Google and SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comments.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google is testing the feasibility of sending data centers to space that could run on the power of the sun. REUTERS\/Yves Herman Google is testing a new project that could harness the sun to power data centers in space. Google&#039;s own research shows that space-based data centers could avoid draining resources on Earth. SpaceX and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37785,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}