AI TRENDS | Google Energy Chief Says Space Data Centers Could Cost Up to 100 Times More

Google data center energy chief Amanda Peterson-Corio said space data centers could cost up to 100 times as much as ground-based facilities. According to Sina Finance, she said operators would also face challenges maintaining and upgrading equipment in orbit, unlike on Earth, where workers can replace servers and reconfigure systems. At the WTF Summit, Peterson-Corio urged companies to explore feasible ground-based options before moving computing infrastructure into space. She said inexperienced developers had contributed to growing local opposition to data centers and supported higher industry standards. Google is working with satellite imagery company Planet Labs to explore the feasibility of large-scale orbital data center clusters under its Suncatcher project. The company has launched a small prototype server carrying an AI tensor processing unit custom-designed with Broadcom. A paper by Google researchers, including chief scientist James Manyika, said orbital computing costs per unit of power could approach ground-based levels if launch costs fell to $200 per kilogram or less. The researchers said that threshold could be reached around 2035, depending on SpaceX Starship’s development and launch frequency. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said the company could build a space data center as early as next year. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and head of Blue Origin, has predicted that a 1-gigawatt space data center could emerge within a decade. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has called the idea impractical under current conditions. Peterson-Corio said electricity supply is sufficient and identified project approval and grid interconnection reviews as the main bottlenecks. Alphabet’s X lab is working with PJM on Tapestry, a project using AI to speed up assessments. She also said the grid averages about 45% unused capacity, largely to meet peak demand. Google supports commitments such as paying for grid upgrades for 15 to 20 years, paying electricity bills and property taxes, posting funds for land restoration if a project is abandoned, and ending confidentiality agreements with local governments. Such grid-infrastructure commitments are in place in more than nine states, she said. Google has also said it will increasingly rely on third-party computing resources because its own data center construction is not keeping pace with demand.