"Earlier this month, Google researchers released a paper about "Project Suncatcher," the company's research "moonshot" to build data centers in space. The paper's authors don't mince words when it comes to the challenges the tech giant is facing from A.I.'s energy demands, and their planned solution is to launch "fleets of satellites" into space and harvest energy from the sun."
"Google's space-based data centers won't be gigantic monolithic buildings like the data centers we have on Earth, but a "constellation of solar-powered satellites" carrying tensor processing units (the processors used to power Google's A.I. systems). The paper boasts that the company's data center fleet "will be significantly larger ... than any previous or current satellite constellations" in orbit. Reading the paper, I was struck by a sense of déjà vu."
"It was all too familiar: the rapidly increasing energy demands of A.I., the need for alternative energy sources, and launching data centers into the sky to harvest energy from the sun. Sure enough, Google is going to have some stiff competition, including from its own former CEO Eric Schmidt (who took over control of Relativity Space and is also planning to launch data centers into space), Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Red Hat ( owned by IBM), China, startups like Starcloud, and others."
Project Suncatcher is a Google initiative to place data centers in orbit as a constellation of solar-powered satellites. Each satellite would carry tensor processing units to run large A.I. workloads, and the fleet would be larger than any prior satellite constellations. The initiative addresses rapidly increasing A.I. energy demands by harvesting solar energy in space and powering compute hardware. Multiple competitors and actors pursue similar plans, including Relativity Space under Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Red Hat (owned by IBM), China, and startups such as Starcloud. The plans raise environmental and scientific concerns: increased orbital debris, atmospheric and light pollution, and impediments to astronomical research amid limited regulation.
Read at Slate Magazine
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