The race to build orbital data centres is gathering pace, even as doubts mount over their cost, feasibility and environmental impact
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Data centres, both existing and planned, are increasingly unwelcome to their human neighbours. They consume a disproportionate amount of energy and squander vast amounts of water and power to cool themselves. Furthermore, the reason they’re exploding in number — artificial intelligence — is at the same time loved and loathed, abused and feared. But don’t expect their expansion to be tamed any time soon — quite the contrary. As ‘hyperscalers’ — data centre behemoths such as Google, Microsoft or Amazon — face severe physical and political limits on Earth, an era of ‘off-world computing’ may soon emerge.
The very idea of putting data centres in orbit sounds absurd. It’s true that, in the right orbit, solar panels can be up to eight times more productive than on Earth. It’s also true that there are no local communities or planning committees to contend with.
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On the other hand, counterintuitively, there’s no air in the vacuum of space to cool the scalding graphics processing units (GPUs) that power AI, requiring massive radiator panels instead. Cosmic radiation and solar flares may also damage chips, with little prospect of sending anyone up to repair them. The idea is so absurd that it’s being actively pursued by our ever-optimistic tech bros.
Starcloud, a start-up, has already sent a single Nvidia H100 GPU into orbit as a proof of concept. Google plans to launch two prototype satellites carrying tensor processing units — chips designed specifically for neural networks — in early 2027. Elon Musk, always prone to hyperbole, is pursuing an even grander scheme: SpaceX has applied to the US Federal Communications Commission for permission to launch up to a million orbital data-centre satellites — server warehouses in the sky, linked to Earth by lasers. In June, Beijing approved the creation of the Space Computing Industry Innovation Center as part of a broader push to develop space-computing networks.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai reckons it a modern-day ‘moonshot’ — a string of breakthroughs will be needed to turn this science-fiction vision into reality. Yet it’s now clear that the idea will be pursued, no matter how much it clashes with the laws of physics, economics and environmental science.
Let’s start with the obvious: launching thousands of heavy computing clusters into space demands a staggering volume of rocket flights, pumping black carbon and greenhouse gases into the stratosphere where they trap heat far more effectively than at ground level.
By mid-2026, more than 16,000 functioning satellites — nearly 11,000 of them Starlink satellites — were in orbit, while surveillance networks regularly tracked about 46,000 objects. These proposed data-centre satellites would be massive. If they really were to scale into the tens of thousands, low Earth orbit would become seriously crowded. The probability of a so-called Kessler Syndrome (the tipping point where a debris-generating collision triggers a cascade of collisions) would get higher.
Space data centres would also have limited working lives — many assume around five years, the most optimistic ten years. Chip obsolescence and cosmic radiation take their toll. How do you decommission a satellite? It’s simple. You vapourise it upon re-entry, showering the upper atmosphere with tons of toxic metallic debris and aluminium oxides that threaten to damage the ozone layer. Musk’s Starlink is following this procedure regularly — 260 satellites were incinerated between last December and May this year.
Building a data centre on Earth may require expensive real estate, but launching scores of heavy server racks into orbit — together with huge solar arrays and radiator panels — would demand investment on an unprecedented, science-fiction scale. A hefty return would be anything but assured. If AI infrastructure became a critical pillar of a nation’s economy and military, space-based data centres would instantly become high-value strategic targets. A good plot line for a Hollywood film.
And now for the final straw: large data centres can draw hundreds of megawatts of power, and facilities of one gigawatt or more are planned. An analysis published by the World Economic Forum estimates that a modest one-megawatt orbital data centre could require roughly 100 tonnes of radiators, together with a solar array spanning several thousand square metres.
