For all the hype about data centers in the space, there just aren’t very many GPUs out there. As that begins to change, the near-term business of orbital compute begins to take shape.
The largest computer cluster currently in orbit was launched by Canada’s Kepler Communications in January and boasts about 40 Nvidia Orin edge processors aboard 10 operational satellites, all connected by 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 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-based sensors used by private companies and government agencies.
Kepler does not see itself as a data center company, but as infrastructure for applications in space, says CEO Mina Mitry to TechCrunch. It wants to be a layer that provides network services to other satellites in space, or drones and aircraft in the sky below.
Sophia, on the other hand, is developing passively cooled space computers that can solve one of the most important challenges for large data centers in orbit: preventing powerful processors from overheating without having to build and launch heavy, expensive active cooling systems.
In the new partnership, Sophia will upload its proprietary operating system to one of Kepler’s satellites and attempt to launch and configure it across six GPUs on two spacecraft. That kind of activity is board games in a ground-based data center, and it’s the first time it will be attempted in orbit. Ensuring that the software works in orbit will be an important exercise to de-risk Sophia ahead of the first planned satellite launch in late 2027.
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For Kepler, the partnership helps prove the utility of its network. Right now, it carries and processes data uploaded from Earth or collected by hosted payloads on its own spacecraft. But as the sector matures, the company expects to begin connecting with third-party satellites to provide network and processing services.
Mitry says satellite companies are now planning future assets around this model, pointing to the benefits of offloading processing for more power-hungry sensors such as synthetic aperture radar. The US 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 demo for the US government.
That kind of edge processing — dealing with data where it’s collected for faster responsiveness — is where orbital data centers will initially prove their worth. That vision separates Sophia and Kepler from established space companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin or startups like Starcloud and Aetherflux, which are raising significant capital to focus on large data centers with data center-style processors.
“Because we have the belief that it’s more inference than training, we want to have multiple distributed GPUs doing inference rather than one superpower GPU that has the training capability,” Mitry told TechCrunch. “If this thing uses kilowatts of power and you’re only running 10% of the time, then it’s not super useful. In our case, our GPUs are running 100% of the time.”
And once these technologies are proven in orbit, anything can happen. Sophia CEO Rob DeMillo points out that last week Wisconsin passed a ban on data center construction, something some lawmakers in Congress are also pushing. Everything that limits data centers on Earth makes the space-based alternative more attractive in their eyes.
“There are no more data centers in this country,” thought Demillo. “It’s going to get weird from here.”