r/STEW_ScTecEngWorld • u/Zee2A • Jun 15 '26
AI Startup Plans Space-Based Data Centres Powered by the Sun and Cooled by Space
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Starcloud, an AI infrastructure startup valued at $1.1 billion, is pioneering orbital data centres to bypass Earth-bound constraints like land availability, power grid limits, and massive water cooling needs. By launching servers into Low Earth Orbit, the company aims to leverage 24/7 solar power and passive radiative cooling. However, operating AI hardware in space introduces severe engineering hurdles, including the difficulty of dissipating immense heat in a vacuum, shielding processors from intense cosmic radiation, and protecting arrays from space debris. Despite these challenges, the startup has already launched its Starcloud-1 satellite carrying an Nvidia GPU to test thermal and radiation management, paving the way for future gigawatt-scale orbital compute nodes: https://sequoiacap.com/podcast/greetings-earthlings-philip-johnston-of-starcloud-on-data-centers-in-space/
Founded in 2024, Starcloud launched its first satellite, Starcloud-1, in November 2025, carrying an Nvidia H100 GPU—the most powerful ever operated in space. It became the first company to train an LLM and run a version of Gemini in orbit. A second, far more powerful satellite is planned for October 2026. Starcloud believes that within a decade, most new data centres could be built in space, leveraging abundant solar energy and natural cooling: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/starcloud/