DATA IN SPACE

An unusual spacecraft reached orbit in November 2025, one that might herald the dawn of a new era.

- JONATHAN O'CALLAGHAN

Called Starcloud-1, it was the size of a small fridge and carried an advanced NVIDIA chip designed to perform complex AI tasks - in space.

Why? Because the startup behind the spacecraft, the US-based Starcloud, thinks that space might be the next great domain for data processing, to the extent that we could one day see giant city-sized structures being assembled in space that will perform a significant chunk of Earth's processing needs.

The rapid advancement of AI, from simple questioning on ChatGPT to complex modelling, has seen the demand for power spike around the globe. Terrestrial data centres are gobbling up huge swathes of power from grids, with all data centres around the world consuming 415 terawatt hours of power in 2024, or 1.5 per cent of global electricity consumption. Cooling these centres also requires tremendous amounts of water.

Space offers a potentially ideal location to place data centres, with abundant energy from the Sun and a cold environment - although expelling heat from satellites is still a challenge in the vacuum of space. The possibility of placing data centres here has garnered significant attention from various organisations, including the European Commission.

So, what needs to be done, and what is the future of data in space?

POWER HUNGRY

Data centres on Earth use tremendous amounts of power. Packed with computers that store and process data, these buildings can consume hundreds of megawatts of power, enough to power tens of thousands of homes. Meta, the company that owns Facebook, is building a data centre in Louisiana, called Hyperion, that will use five gigawatts of power every day when it's completed in 2028.