Google-SpaceX Partnership Brings Fractionalized Data Centers to Space
Google and SpaceX are collaborating on a project to launch and test a 'fractionalized' data center in space. This technology will allow for massive scale, hyper-localized ad delivery and lower long-term infrastructure costs by the mid-2030s.
The fractionalized data center will consist of one massive supercomputer computing network divided into small pieces and scattered across dozens or hundreds of satellites in orbit.
The Federal Communications Commission has accepted the initial phase of the plan, allowing SpaceX to continue with the testing phase. The first 100,000 'Starmind' AI computing satellites are scheduled for launch on October 1, 2026, as part of the Transporter-18 rideshare mission.
Google's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) will be tested in space to withstand launch forces, radiation, and extreme temperatures. The project aims to lay the groundwork for a future era of computation in space.