Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Enters The Space Data Center Game

Blue Origin, nan abstraction conglomerate founded by Amazon chair Jeff Bezos, has asked nan U.S. authorities for support to motorboat a web of much than 50,000 satellites that will enactment arsenic a information halfway successful orbit.

In a March 19 document revenge pinch nan Federal Communications Commission, Blue Origin’s attorneys described “Project Sunrise” arsenic a web of spacecraft that will execute precocious computation successful orbit to “ease mounting unit connected U.S. communities and earthy resources by shifting power – and water-intensive compute distant from terrestrial information centers.”

Blue Origin’s filing did not picture its plans for nan satellites successful detail, truthful it’s difficult to cognize really overmuch computing powerfulness nan institution is aiming to make successful space. It does statement that Blue Origin plans to usage different outer constellation it is seeking to build, called Terawave, arsenic a high-throughput communications backbone for nan information satellites.

Shifting monolithic compute to abstraction is charismatic because star power is free to harvest and, erstwhile successful orbit, location are less regulations restricting firm activities. Entrepreneurs down these projects envision a early wherever AI devices are wide and ideate that overmuch of nan conclusion activity down them will beryllium outsourced to orbit.

Several companies are already pursuing nan idea. SpaceX has revenge for support to motorboat a cardinal satellites to beryllium utilized arsenic a distributed information center, while nan startup Starcloud has projected a web of 60,000 spacecraft to nan FCC. Google is besides processing a conception for a abstraction information halfway called Project Suncatcher, which will spot its partner Planet Labs motorboat 2 demo spacecraft adjacent year.

While excitement astir abstraction information centers is precocious successful nan tech world, nan economics of these projects remain challenging. Technology for cooling processors and communicating betwixt spacecraft pinch powerful lasers will request to beryllium developed and manufactured arsenic cheaply arsenic possible, while scientists are still determining really good precocious chips activity connected different tasks while exposed to nan precocious radiation situation successful space.

A captious area is nan costs to motorboat these computers into orbit, and astir are betting that nan value of reaching orbit will autumn owed to SpaceX’s Starship rocket, which is still nether improvement and whitethorn spot its first 2026 motorboat adjacent month.

This is an area wherever Blue Origin, agelong an also-ran successful nan rocket business, whitethorn person an advantage. Its New Glenn rocket, which first flew past year, is 1 of nan astir powerful operational motorboat vehicles connected Earth. If nan institution tin commencement flying and reusing them astatine a regular pace, Blue Origin could spot nan aforesaid benignant of benefits from vertical integration that allowed SpaceX to predominate abstraction telecommunications pinch its Starlink network.

Beyond economical and technological challenges, nan abstraction situation itself whitethorn beryllium an obstacle. Space successful cardinal orbits adjacent to nan Earth is getting ever much congested, and adding tens aliases hundreds of thousands of caller satellites will summation concerns astir orbital collisions. Meanwhile, burning up thousands of satellites successful orbit aft they go obsolete, arsenic is modular believe successful nan manufacture today, is apt to impact nan chemistry of nan precocious atmosphere, pinch researchers fretting astir harms to nan ozone layer.

The filing besides lacked specifications astir timing, but experts show TechCrunch that specified projects are improbable to travel to fruition until nan 2030s.