Starcloud

Summary

Skip to content How Starcloud Is Bringing Data Centers to Outer Space The NVIDIA Inception startup projects that space-based data centers will offer 10x lower energy costs and reduce the need for energy consumption on Earth. Extraterrestrial data centers are just on the horizon. Soon, an AI-equipped satellite from Starcloud, a member of the NVIDIA Inception program for startups, will orbit the Earth. It’s a large step toward the startup’s ultimate goal to bring state-of-the-art data centers to outer space. This can be a part of the solution to address challenges faced by rising AI demands, including energy consumption and cooling requirements for data centers on Earth. Your browser does not support HTML5 video. Starcloud plans to build a 5-gigawatt orbital data center with super-large solar and cooling panels approximately 4 kilometers in width and length. Video courtesy of Starcloud. “In space, you get almost unlimited, low-cost renewable energy,” said Philip Johnston, cofounder and CEO of the startup, which is based in Redmond, Washington. “The only cost on the environment will be on the launch, then there will be 10x carbon-dioxide savings over the life of the data center compared with powering the data center terrestrially on Earth.” Starcloud’s upcoming satellite launch, planned for November, will mark the NVIDIA H100 GPU’s cosmic debut — and the first time a state-of-the-art, data center-class GPU is in outer space. The 60-kilogram Starcloud-1 satellite, about the size of a small fridge, is expected to offer 100x more powerful GPU compute than any previous space-based operation. Your browser does not support the video tag. An engineer inspects the Starcloud-1 satellite planned for launch in November. The silver module inside the satellite houses the NVIDIA H100 GPU. Video courtesy of Starcloud. How Data Centers in Space Can Increase SustainabilityInstead of relying on fresh water for cooling through evaporation towers, as many Earth-based data centers do, Star...