Here’s an out-of-this-world idea: If data centers here on Earth are so power-hungry and taxing on the environment, why not solve the problem by launching them off the planet?
That’s the elevator pitch of Lumen Orbit, a Y Combinator-backed startup, which recently raised more than USD 10 million to build the next frontier in data infrastructure: space-based data centers. The Redmond, Washington-based company’s ambitious plan takes advantage of the high-intensity solar power available in orbit to drastically lower energy costs for training AI models, potentially cutting power expenses by as much as 95%.
There are environmental benefits, too. “We see data centers in space as producing at least 10 times lower carbon emissions, even including the launch,” says Co-Founder and CEO Philip Johnston. “In the long term, methane for the launch can be produced in green ways.”
Lumen Orbit’s first step is a satellite demonstration, slated for 2025 as part of the NVIDIA Inception startup incubator program. According to the company’s whitepaper, its approach hinges on the creation of solar arrays, which are massive solar panels, in space. The solar arrays would feed energy into high-density compute modules, relying on advanced cooling systems—likely involving liquid cooling or two-phase immersion—to handle the heat generated by powerful AI workloads.
“Nobody is thinking on the scale that we are,” Johnston says.
But people have been thinking about data centers in space for a while.
It's not a huge surprise that a startup aiming to establish orbital data centers is attracting so much attention. With the growing demand for AI processing power, major corporations like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are turning to nuclear power plants to help meet their energy needs. The Electric Power Research Institute projects that data centers will account for 9% of the total energy consumption in the United States by 2030. And space isn’t the only out-of-the-box location that businesses are considering for data centers: Microsoft developed, and eventually shut down, an experimental data center deep in the ocean.
In addition to benefits such as lower costs and reduced environmental impact, space-based data stations could offer data availability to remote locations on Earth, connectivity during natural disasters and, theoretically, unlimited physical space for expansion. But there are hurdles, too. For one thing, it’s still really expensive to launch a satellite into orbit. (Lumen’s estimates hover at USD 8.2 million.) Latency issues because of distance might rule out certain applications, such as financial transactions. The severe environment of space, including the presence of cosmic radiation or space debris, could result in hardware failure or data corruption that’s difficult to repair.
These challenges have meant that, despite global interest from both governments and private industry, not everyone is ready for liftoff. The international laws and regulations governing tech in space are still evolving. And many governments and national agencies are taking a more cautious, exploratory approach, commissioning research projects that plot out the path to data centers in low Earth orbit (LEO) over the longer term.
The EU commissioned one such study from Thales Alenia Space, a France-based global space manufacturer of satellite-based systems. The results of the ASCEND (Advanced Space Cloud for European Net zero Emission and Data sovereignty) feasibility study, which were published in June, found that deploying data centers in orbit could significantly reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions compared to traditional Earth-based infrastructure. With solar power as their energy source, these space data centers would additionally eliminate the need for water cooling, aligning with Europe’s 2050 carbon neutrality goals.
The study laid out a roadmap for a 50-kilowatt proof of concept that Thales Alenia hopes to deploy by 2031, eventually ramping up to a 1-gigawatt deployment by 2050. It also projects potential returns of several billion Euros by 2050.
“The need for data centers for Europeans is growing and should continue in the same direction for the following years,” says Damien Dumestier, ASCEND project manager at Thales Alenia Space. “Space data centers could offer an opportunity to provide Europe with a lower environmental footprint and could also be a flagship for the future of the European space industry.”
Elsewhere in Europe, a team of IBM researchers in Zurich, Switzerland, has partnered with Poland’s KP Labs, a company focused on building AI-powered software and hardware for space applications, to study orbital data centers for the European Space Agency (ESA).
In their research, which will be published in a future scientific paper, the team outlines three possible scenarios for the data centers. The first two scenarios involve two satellites in the same orbit: one gathers data, while the other processes it. In the first, a small satellite detects wildfires and sends raw data to a larger satellite, which analyzes the data and transmits key findings to Earth. In the second, a satellite in LEO transfers unspecified data to a geostationary space data center (which rotates along the Earth’s orbit) that has the advantage of continuous ground station connectivity. The third scenario imagines a lunar lander acting as a data center, processing information from exploration rovers and sending relevant findings to Earth via a relay satellite.
“We achieved what we aimed at,” says Jonas Weiss, Senior Research Scientist at IBM Research Europe. “We could show that there is likely an inflection point approaching, where edge computing of massive data in space will be economically more viable than sending it down to Earth.”
Orbital data centers aren’t just key for augmenting processing power on Earth—they will also be important to the increasing number of astronauts and researchers working in space.
Axiom Space, which offers human spaceflight services and infrastructure, is currently developing a commercial space station. With support from NASA’s Commercial LEO Development Program, the Houston, Texas-based company plans to dock the first module of the Axiom Station at the International Space Station as early as 2026. Over time, the facility will gain enough functionality to detach and operate alone.
Axiom Space anticipates that its space station will host a growing number of crew members who will need reliable cloud services. To meet the demand, the company is developing an orbital data center capability (ODC T1) designed to lessen dependence on Earth-based infrastructure. These orbital data centers use laser-based communication systems called optical intersatellite links (OISLs) to securely transmit data to other satellites. Because of its modular design, the company says, the system can grow with demand, and it also offers a pressurized environment where terrestrial-grade hardware can operate without being exposed to the harsh elements of space.
While Axiom is currently focused on working in LEO, it isn’t ruling out exploring further into the solar system.
“Humanity has aspirations for exploration and economic development on the Moon, Mars and beyond,” an Axiom representative says, adding that data centers for any large-scale human or robotic missions will need to be able to support real-time onsite data processing, data storage and AI capabilities. “Advancing and implementing ODCs in Earth’s orbit sets the technological and economic foundations for humanity to continue to explore and advance further into the solar system.”