Google plans test of space chips in Project Suncatcher

Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Thursday it would launch a prototype satellite next week in its first in-orbit test of Project Suncatcher, a research effort to explore whether space could potentially host large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) computing infrastructure.

Companies including Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) and Starcloud Inc are pursuing plans to deploy data centers in low Earth orbit, aiming to harness near-continuous sunlight to power energy-intensive AI computing and sidestep terrestrial constraints on electricity supplies.

The new mission, scheduled to fly on SpaceX’s upcoming Transporter-18 rideshare launch in partnership with satellite company Planet Labs PBC, is to assess how Google’s AI hardware withstands launch forces, radiation and extreme temperatures in low Earth orbit.

A Google logo is displayed on a building on the company’s campus in Mountain View, California, on Thursday.

Photo: AP

After the launch, it will send a prototype satellite carrying Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) into low Earth orbit to assess if the AI chips can operate reliably in space.

Space radiation can disrupt or degrade electronics, including by causing data errors known as bit flips.

Google aims to test its TPUs while running AI workloads in a facility at the University of California, Davis, but that orbital testing is needed to understand how the hardware performs in the real environment, the company said.

The company will also evaluate its design to cool the power-intensive chips in the vacuum of space, where conventional airflow cooling is impossible, by combining heat pipes with radiators, it said.

Experts have said that the concept remains years from being commercially viable given high launch costs, engineering constraints and satellite production bottlenecks.

The first Suncatcher mission is designed to gather in-orbit data and identify potential failure points, rather than demonstrate an operational orbital data center, Google said.

It aims to launch two satellites next year to test the high-bandwidth laser links needed to connect future computing clusters, it said.