Despite all the hype about data centers in space, there simply aren’t many GPUs up there. As this begins to change, the near-term business of orbital computing is beginning to take shape.
The largest computing cluster currently in orbit was launched by Canada’s Kepler Communications in January and features around 40 Nvidia Orin edge processors aboard 10 operational satellites, all connected to each other via laser communications links.
The company now has 18 customers and announced its newest on Monday: Sophia Space, a startup that will test the software for its unique orbital computer aboard the Kepler constellation.
Experts expect we won’t see large-scale data centers like those envisioned by SpaceX or Blue Origin until the 2030s. The first step will be to process data collected in orbit to improve the capabilities of space sensors used by private companies and government agencies.
Kepler doesn’t see itself as a data center company, but as an infrastructure for applications in space, CEO Mina Mitry tells TechCrunch. It wants to be a layer that provides network services for other satellites in space, or drones and planes in the sky.
Sophia, on the other hand, is developing passively cooled space computers that could solve one of the problems key challenges for large-scale data centers in orbit: prevent powerful processors from overheating without having to build and launch heavy and expensive active cooling systems.
In the new partnership, Sophia will load its proprietary operating system onto one of Kepler’s satellites and attempt to launch and configure it on six GPUs on two spacecraft. That type of activity is something that is in play in a terrestrial data center, and this is the first time it will be attempted in orbit. Ensuring the software works in orbit will be a key risk-reducing exercise for Sophia ahead of its planned first satellite launch in late 2027.
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For Kepler, the partnership helps demonstrate the usefulness of its network. Currently, it transports and processes data uploaded from Earth or collected by payloads hosted on its own spacecraft. But as the sector matures, the company hopes to begin connecting with third-party satellites to provide processing and networking services.
Mitry says satellite companies are now planning future assets around this model, noting the benefits of offloading processing for more power-hungry sensors such as synthetic aperture radar. The U.S. military is a key customer for that kind of work, as it develops a new missile defense system based on satellites that detect and track threats. Kepler has already demonstrated a space-to-air laser link in a demonstration for the US government.
That type of edge processing (dealing with data where it is collected for faster response capability) is where orbital data centers will initially prove their value. That vision distinguishes Sophia and Kepler from established space companies like SpaceX and blue originor startups like star cloud and Ether flow which are raising significant capital to focus on large-scale data centers with data center-style processors.
“Because we think it’s more inference than training, we want more distributed GPUs doing inference, rather than one super-powerful GPU that has the training workload capability,” Mitry told TechCrunch. “If this consumes kilowatts of power and only works 10% of the time, then that’s not very useful. In our case, our GPUs work 100% of the time.”
And once these technologies are tested in orbit, anything can happen. Sophia CEO Rob DeMillo notes that Wisconsin adopted a ban on data center construction last week, something some lawmakers in Congress are also pushing for. Anything that limits data centers on Earth, in his view, makes the space alternative more attractive.
“There are no data centers in this country anymore,” Demillo reflected. “It’s going to get weird from here.”
