Future data centers could orbit the Earth, powered by the sun and cooled by the vacuum of space

As global demand for computing As the explosion continues, the carbon footprint of data centers is a growing concern. A new study shows how hosting these facilities in space could help reduce the sector’s emissions.

Data centers require huge amounts of power And water to power and cool the millions of chips inside. Current estimates The International Energy Agency pegs its electricity consumption at about 415 terawatt hours globally, or approximately 1.5 percent of total consumption in 2024. The Institute for Environment and Energy Studies He says Large data centers can use up to five million gallons per day for cooling.

With the demand on computing resources increasing day by day, especially since the rapid adoption of resource consumption Generative artificial intelligence Across the economy, this threatens to become an unsustainable burden on the planet.

But new paper in Nature electronics Scientists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore suggest that hosting data centers in space could provide a potential solution. By drawing on the abundant solar energy available in orbit and releasing waste heat into the cold vacuum of space, such facilities could, in principle, become carbon neutral.

“Space provides a truly sustainable environment for computing,” said Wen Yonggang, lead author of the study. press release. “By harnessing the energy of the sun and the cold vacuum of space, orbiting data centers could transform global computing.”

To validate their proposal, the researchers used coupled numerical simulations of orbital computing systems to model how they generate power, manage heat, and maintain connectivity. The team investigated two potential architectures: one designed to reduce the footprint of the data collected by the satellites themselves, and another that would receive data from Earth for processing.

The first model involves integrating data processing capabilities into satellites equipped with sensors, for example, cameras to image the Earth. This would make it possible to perform expensive calculations on on-board data before only sending the results back to Earth, rather than processing the raw data in ground-based data centres.

Another approach involves a constellation of satellites equipped with entire servers that can receive data from Earth and coordinate to perform complex computing tasks such as training artificial intelligence models or running large simulations. The researchers point out that this type of distributed data center architecture — rather than clumping together a large, homogeneous data center in orbit — is technologically feasible with current satellite and computing technologies.

The team’s analysis suggests that the large carbon footprint of launching devices into space could be offset within five years of operation, after which the facilities could be powered indefinitely using renewable energy.

Significant technical and logistical obstacles remain. Computer chips are vulnerable to radiation, an ever-present danger in space, which necessitates the use of specialized radiation-hardened processors. Long-term maintenance of facilities will also require in-orbit servicing technologies that do not yet exist. As computing technologies improve rapidly, the value of chips declines within a few years. Maintaining orbital data centers equipped with the latest and greatest data can be expensive.

But the NTU team is not the first to come up with the idea of ​​transporting computing facilities into space. Last year, French defense giant Thales published a study Explore the feasibility of the idea. Next month, the startup Starcloud will launch Satellite launch Download an Nvidia H100 GPU as your first step toward creating a network of orbital data centers.

While achieving the vision will likely require technical breakthroughs and a huge amount of investment, one solution to computing’s ever-increasing carbon footprint may be right over our heads.