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By Thomas Westerholm
Life & Trends Reporter
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As the use of AI skyrockets, the need for data centers and cooling has risen along with it, and some have suggested an outside-the-box solution: data centers in space.
In November, Google revealed a "moonshot" plan called Project Suncatcher—an attempt to "work backward" from a potential future in which machine learning takes place in space, harnessing "the full power of the Sun."
"There is no doubt to me that, a decade or so away, we will be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said.
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Google isn't alone—Elon Musk has also suggested SpaceX will eventually operate data centers in space.
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Why It Matters
Data centers require a lot of water for cooling, and many of the larger ones can consume up to five million gallons per day.
Further complicating the situation: Data centers require fresh water, which makes up only three percent of the world's supply.
According to a 2025 environmental report, "Data center developers are increasingly tapping into surface and underground aquifers to cool their facilities," even as drought and water shortages reduce water availability.
In theory, space would provide a safe place for data centers, as the temperature is low and the lack of clouds would allow constant exposure to sunlight.
What To Know
But is space the future of data centers? One physicist writing in Wired doesn't think it's likely.
Rhett Allain, an associate professor of physics at Southeastern Louisiana University, explained that there are a few crucial reasons why space and data centers aren't actually a good mix.
First, Allain notes, the temperature of space is low, but calling it "cold" would be a misnomer because space is considered a vacuum. Heat can only be transferred in space by radiation, not by immersion.
Large-scale data centers the size of the ones on Earth would essentially be impossible to cool. As Allain pointed out, numerous systems would be required to work correctly until the size of the structure would be untenable.
Allain acknowledged that a data center in space could, in theory, be made up of many smaller satellites, but that creates another issue: Further clogging up Earth's low orbit, which is already congested by satellites.
That problem is compounded by repairs—space engineer Andrew McCallip told Engadget that fixing satellites would be so prohibitively difficult that any satellite would likely be "a fly till you die scenario."
Any collision in space of satellites would, in turn, break off bits of the satellites and create more debris, thereby creating more opportunities for satellites to collide.
In a worst-case scenario, especially if the atmosphere was full of small data center satellites, the resulting mess could create a Kessler cascade—a multiplying effect that could destroy communication and weather satellites.
What's Next
As part of Project Suncatcher, Google plans to launch two spacecraft by early 2027 in an effort to test computer chips optimized for AI in space.
Musk and SpaceX, meanwhile, filed an application in January with the Federal Communications Commission looking for permission to launch 1 million satellites into orbit.
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