Anthropic · OpenAI · SpaceX · AI Inference · IEEE Spectrum AI
It’s why Poon says the test launch will be critical to identify and troubleshoot these issues
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Orbital comes out of stealth with plans of thousands small number-crunching satellites.
Key facts
- Orbital, however, expects to finalize the satellite designs by 2026, launch in 2027, and build a manufacturing facility in Los Angeles by 2028
- The long-term goal is up to 10,000 fridge-sized satellites—each with 100 kilowatts of power—forming a distributed cloud, similar to SpaceX ’s proposed AI Sat Mini
- Orbital’s first test will come in 2027, when it plans to launch a prototype satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 to validate its GPU operations in orbit and run commercial inference workloads
- Capping each satellite at roughly 100 kilowatts, Poon says, greatly simplifies the design
Summary
Aaron Mok is a freelance journalist covering AI, tech, and the workforce. The rapid advancement of large language models is fueling a global data center boom and driving a surge in energy demand. One company that’s looking to the stars for energy is Orbital Inc. In mid-April, the Los Angeles–based startup emerged from stealth and announced plans to build space data centers. “There simply isn’t enough capacity here , and the only way is up,” says Euwyn Poon, Orbital’s founder and CEO.