Google is sending TPU chips in space for AI, Elon Musk reacts

Google wants to join in on the AI action in space. The company has announced that it will soon send its first satellite in space with advanced TPU chips as part of Project Suncatcher. Here is how Elon Musk, who has often promoted orbital data centres, reacted to this news.

In Short

• The mission will measure chip performance through radiation, vibration and thermal extremes
• Orbital solar access could deliver far more power than Earth-based facilities
• Google's earlier lab tests suggested Trillium TPUs could endure years of radiation

Space is the next frontier. You may have heard this phrase in the past regarding the future of humanity. But quickly, space is becoming the next arena for AI. Google has announced that it is going to send a satellite carrying its advanced TPUs next week as it evaluates space for potentially hosting AI infrastructure. To do this, the company is taking the help of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

In a blog post, Google announced that it will send a prototype satellite carrying its TPUs or Tensor Processing Units, into low Earth orbit next week as part of Project Suncatcher. Project Suncatcher is the company’s long-term research effort to test whether space could one day host large-scale AI computing infrastructure.

Announcing the launch on X, Google CEO Sundar Pichai made a reference to Neil Armstrong’s famous phrase from the Moon Landing. Pichai wrote, “One small step for TPUs....”

The first in-orbit test will fly on SpaceX’s upcoming Transporter-18 rideshare mission in partnership with Planet Labs. It is meant to find out whether Google’s AI hardware – TPUs – can survive launch forces and operate through radiation and extreme temperatures in space.

Elon Musk reacts to Google’s AI plans for space

Elon Musk, who is arguably the biggest proponent of data centres in space, reacted to this announcement. On X, the tech trillionaire mentioned that soon space will host almost all of humanity’s computing resources. “The amount of compute in space will obviously round up to 100 per cent of all compute,” Musk wrote.

Google states that the launch remains an early experiment to understand how feasible such a project could be in the long term, rather than the start of an Google, operational orbital data centre.

Data centres on Earth need a lot of energy and water to run, with companies using billions of litres of water every year to keep the hardware cool. On the other hand, In low Earth orbit, satellites can get near-constant sunlight, allowing them to generate up to eight times more solar power than on Earth. This has made space look like an alternative as many – like Elon Musk – say that it can allow for much more computing power without burdening resources of the Earth.

“Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing hardship on communities and the environment,” Elon Musk said earlier this year. ““In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale.”

Google’s plans for first TPU flight to space

According to Google, the first question is simple – can its AI hardware work in space at all? A rocket trip into low Earth orbit usually lasts about 10 minutes. During this period, a spacecraft is subjected to intense vibration and sustained acceleration loads of up to 10 times the force of gravity – or 10g. Google says components such as TPU chips can face forces of 50 to 100g. The company did carry out vibration tests by shaking the satellite across all three axes to mimic launch conditions.

But a key concern in space is radiation. Solar events and cosmic rays can disrupt electronics and cause errors. To study this, Google says it tested its TPUs while running AI workloads at UC Davis’s Crocker Nuclear Laboratory. As per the company, the initial results showed its Trillium TPUs could withstand a total ionising radiation dose greater than what they would receive during a five-year space mission.

Even so, Google said some things can only be tested in orbit, which is why it wants real flight data from this launch.

The company is also using the mission to study cooling. Google said TPUs generate a large amount of heat in a small area, but in space there is no airflow, so heat cannot be removed in the same way as it is on Earth. Instead, the company is testing a system that combines heat pipes and radiators. Google has already tried it in a thermal vacuum chamber designed to simulate the vacuum and thermal environment of space.

Project Suncatcher’s longer-term plan goes beyond a single satellite. Future designs could involve clusters of satellites with each carrying dozens of TPU chips. If this does happen, it could allow Google to link these clusters together to process larger AI workloads in orbit. To make that possible, satellites would need to know their position relative to one another and exchange data over high-bandwidth laser links across very short distances with extreme precision. Google said it plans to test that part of the system in 2027, when it aims to place two satellites in orbit.

But there is more to the story of AI in space. Apart from Google’s Project Suncatcher, and Elon Musk’s plans of orbital data centres, companies like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin also have similar ideas. Blue Origin has previously announced plans to set up data centres in lunar orbit. India's Sarvam has also announced plans for orbital data centres with aerospace firm Pixxel. Meanwhile, Starcloud, which is working with Nvidia, also has plans to launch satellites with advanced GPUs in the Earth’s orbit.

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