By Micah Maidenberg and Merrill Sherman
Nvidia recently posted a job straight out of a science-fiction epic: orbital data-center system architect.
The chip maker and other technology giants are working to take an idea that has captivated futurists -- channeling the sun's power through spacecraft to support activity on Earth -- and make it reality for artificial-intelligence computing.
Elon Musk has recast much of SpaceX's future around operating AI data centers in space. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin envisions building a big business doing the same, while Alphabet's Google and Planet Labs are working on a mission to test how satellites would run AI computing systems.
Proponents say offloading computing to orbit will allow AI developers to scale up the technology without the headaches they are facing on Earth, including efforts to ban data centers.
Operating orbital data centers will require engineers and executives to make advancements in everything from handling radiation to rockets. A big part of the challenge is producing and launching scores of the devices without breaking the bank. Some engineers don't believe the math works, and big questions remain unanswered.
How would an orbital data center work?
Data centers on the ground feature racks of servers in cavernous, temperature-controlled buildings.
Orbital data centers will feature swarms of satellites laden with AI chips. They will need solar arrays to produce electricity to run the AI computing systems.
The satellites are expected to fly in an orbit that roughly travels over Earth's poles to maximize their exposure to sunlight.
Solar power is the promise...
Satellites have been run on solar power for decades. Satellites for AI would need to take that tech and replicate it on a much larger scale.
The International Space Station generates enough electricity to power roughly 100 advanced AI chips, according to one estimate. An orbital data center may need to produce electricity to power many thousands of chips inside thousands of satellites.
Enter huge solar arrays. At an event in March, Musk showed a rendering of a SpaceX "AI Sat Mini." Nothing was small about the device. It featured solar arrays that made the satellite far longer than the company's Starship rocket, which is around 400 feet tall.
"Solar arrays of multikilometers in scale are what's needed," Rocket Lab Chief Executive Peter Beck told investors earlier this year.
...but heat and cooling is a challenge
Space is cold, but it is a vacuum. As such, AI satellites will need sophisticated systems to regulate temperatures to keep chips operating.
Keeping satellites cool as AI chips throw off heat is a major hurdle in making orbital data centers cost competitive with infrastructure on the ground.
"Managing heat in space is difficult, which really means expensive," said Shanti Rao, a spacecraft consultant who formerly worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
AI satellites would use radiators to get rid of heat produced by chips. Those devices would take the form of flat, black-painted pieces of metal , directed toward cold space (and thus away from sources of heat, from the Sun to solar panels).
Larger radiators and the gear that supports heat dissipation would add mass to each satellite, and big radiators can be pricey because they have more ways to break, according to Rao.
Sending AI data around
Ample engineering will be needed to ensure AI satellites can send data between them and between space and the ground.
Optical links, known as space lasers, would transmit data between satellites, to try to mimic AI computing clusters on Earth. They need a lot of energy.
"You want to send lots and lots of data?" said Daniel Bliss, an engineering professor at Arizona State University. "Well, you've got to send lots and lots of power."
Transmitting data in space would require carefully controlling how laser devices lodged on satellites are pointed, a challenging task given the scale of an orbital data center.
Communicating with Earth is another issue: Many orbital data centers being proposed envision using radio frequencies to communicate data back to the ground. Bliss said there are limits on how much data that spectrum can move.
Cheap launch needed
Whether AI satellites make sense will come down, in part, to rockets.
In a recent paper, researchers at Google said that if launch costs fell to about $200 a kilogram or less, AI orbital data centers would be comparable to traditional data center costs. A mission on SpaceX's workhorse rocket can cost around $3,400 a kilogram.
More providers plan to start launching new rockets more often, something that could help keep a lid on prices. Launch prices aren't guaranteed to fall. SpaceX has raised prices recently for its Falcon 9 flights.
Baiju Bhatt, chief executive of orbital data-center startup Cowboy Space, concluded his company needed its own rockets to launch AI-in-space devices. It recently raised $275 million to pursue that goal.
"We want to unlock the economics that make this cost competitive. You've got to take control of your own destiny," said Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood.
Also needed: A huge number of satellites
Another obstacle for companies that want to deploy swarms of AI satellites: You are going to need a lot of them.
SpaceX's plans alone for orbital data centers mean the company would need major manufacturing capacity, said satellite consultant Stuart Taylor. "It's going to be just a massive undertaking to produce all these satellites," he said.
Does the math work?
Andrew McCalip, a space engineer, created an online tool to calculate the costs of orbital data centers versus typical costs on the ground.
The tool is all about trade-offs. If gas-turbine costs shoot up, that helps make the economic case on AI satellites. If launch costs don't get cheaper, to highlight one example, the business rationale for orbital data centers becomes harder to make.
McCalip said in a post, "If you run the numbers honestly, the physics doesn't immediately kill it, but the economics are savage."
Write to Micah Maidenberg at micah.maidenberg@wsj.com and Merrill Sherman at merrill.sherman@wsj.com
Watch: SpaceX Wants to Blast Data Centers Into Orbit. Here's What It May Take.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 12, 2026 11:45 ET (15:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments