Report: Google and SpaceX in talks to put data centers into orbit

In Brief

Google and SpaceX are successful talks to motorboat orbital information centers successful space, reports The Wall Street Journal, citing sources acquainted with the matter.

The imaginable woody comes arsenic SpaceX gears up for its $1.75 trillion IPO aboriginal this year, selling investors connected the thought that information centers successful abstraction volition beryllium the cheapest spot to enactment AI compute wrong the adjacent fewer years. It besides follows SpaceX’s woody with Anthropic past week to usage computing resources from xAI’s information halfway successful Memphis, Tennessee, with the imaginable to enactment unneurotic connected orbital ones successful the future. (SpaceX acquired xAI successful February.)

Google is reportedly talking to different rocket-launch companies, arsenic well. The institution besides plans to motorboat prototype satellites by 2027 arsenic portion of an inaugural called Project Suncatcher, announced precocious past year.

Elon Musk has created hype for orbital information centers, claiming they are cheaper to operate. Advocates besides constituent retired they are escaped from section backlash that U.S. ground-based buildouts attract. However, arsenic TechCrunch precocious reported, today’s terrestrial information centers are overmuch cheaper than those successful orbit erstwhile outer operation and motorboat costs are factored in.

Google invested $900 cardinal successful SpaceX successful 2015, according to regulatory filings.

TechCrunch has reached retired to Google and SpaceX for comment.

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