Payload separates successfully after liftoff on SpaceX Falcon 9

The interior of Google's headquarters in New York, seen in July. [Reuters]
The interior of Google's headquarters in New York, seen in July. [Reuters]

A prototype satellite carrying Google's AI chips has reached orbit aboard a SpaceX rocket, marking the start of the experimental phase in Big Tech's race to build data centers in space.

According to US broadcaster CNBC and other outlets, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 11:32 a.m. Thursday (local time), placing into orbit a prototype satellite from Planet Labs equipped with Google's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), along with other payloads. All 130 payloads, including the TPU satellite, separated successfully over an 11-minute window beginning 54 minutes after liftoff.

The launch marks the first orbital test of Google's Suncatcher project, an initiative to build AI data centers in space.

According to Google, the satellite carries four TPUs and will remain in orbit for one year to test the effects of space radiation on the chips and evaluate heat dissipation performance in a vacuum.

In a previously published blog post, Google described Suncatcher as a project exploring "whether space could someday host scalable machine learning infrastructure." The company noted that low-Earth orbit satellites can "receive nearly constant sunlight, enabling them to generate up to eight times more solar power than ground-based systems," and said its long-term vision is to link multiple satellite constellations to handle large-scale AI workloads in orbit.

Google plans to launch two additional satellites next year to test laser communications between them.

Space-based data centers have emerged as an alternative as the AI boom pushes ground-based facilities into mounting difficulties over power supply, site availability and community opposition.

SpaceX is also pursuing its own orbital data center, envisioned as a constellation of satellites equipped with GPUs and solar panels — the latter to be produced in partnership with Tesla. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said earlier this year that space-based data centers would become the cheapest way to train AI, adding, "That will happen within two years, or three years at the latest."

Google's parent company Alphabet is a major shareholder of SpaceX, which went public in June, with its stake valued at more than $82 billion. The two companies compete in AI while also working closely together.


yckim6452@heraldcorp.com