- Google and SpaceX Reportedly in Talks About In-Orbit Data Centers
- It is the infrastructure in which many large technology companies are investing.
- However, there are concerns about how feasible the technology really is.
A lot of effort and money is being poured into plans to put data centers in space, primarily to meet the growing demands of AI processing, and Google and SpaceX are now reported to be in talks to further saturate Earth’s orbit.
According to The Wall Street Journal and “people familiar with the discussions,” talks are underway between the two giant tech companies. Google would provide the data centers and SpaceX would provide the rockets to get them where they need to be.
There aren’t many more details here, although the report says Google is discussing its options with “other rocket launch companies.” It’s a delicate time for SpaceX, an initial public offering is expected in just a few months, and deals like this certainly wouldn’t hurt the company’s valuation.
It’s also worth noting that Google owns 6.1% of SpaceX. Google has made no secret of its plans to put data centers in space: “I have no doubt that within a decade or so, we’ll see this as a more normal way of building data centers,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai told Fox News in an interview last November.
But can it work?
With so many big companies investing in this technology, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s all ready to go, but that’s not entirely the case.
As things stand, the technology is not currently available due to various engineering challenges, and people like OpenAI’s Sam Altman don’t think it’s a feasible idea anytime soon.
On the plus side: There’s plenty of room in space (although not as much as there used to be) and plenty of power, thanks to the constant availability of solar power. There would be no need to disrupt neighborhoods or overload power grids every time a giant new data center needed to be built.
However, this is also incredibly expensive and incredibly difficult from a technical perspective. Current data center technology is not designed to withstand the extremes of space, and there is also the question of how repairs can be performed in orbit.
For those who fully believe in the future of technology, those problems can be overcome with time, funding and more research. However, it will be some time before we see this work at scale.
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