Google is developing a groundbreaking solution to the massive energy demand caused by artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that the company plans to launch solar-powered data centers in space by 2027 as part of an initiative called Project Suncatcher.

Google’s Wild Project

In an interview with Fox News, Pichai explained that this project aims to find a more efficient and sustainable way to run energy-intensive data centers than traditional facilities.

The first phase of this ambitious plan involves space-based data centers, which are expected to be operational with limited capacity in 2027. In partnership with Planet, Google aims to send “small machine racks” to two prototype satellites.

Pichai stated that he predicts that such extraterrestrial data centers will become widespread within the next decade, and that companies will build gigawatt-scale facilities in space to meet the power needs of the AI ​​boom.

Project Suncatcher was announced by Google last month and described as the best solution to the insatiable energy needs of its AI data centers. The company explained that this “research moonshot” will directly harness solar energy to power satellite clusters powered by Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) that communicate with each other via laser links.

In the current climate, data centers, with their ever-increasing energy demands, are creating a major global problem. A 2024 report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory revealed that data centers in the US already consume more than four percent of the nation’s electricity.

Due to the continued growth of AI technologies, this figure is expected to rise to twelve percent by 2028. This is putting intense pressure on electrical grids, driving up prices, and even sparking protests in rural communities.

Google believes that bringing machine learning computing power to space will not only meet the insatiable power demand of AI data centers, but also do so sustainably by substituting solar energy for thermal energy.