🚀 Starcloud wants a 4-km, 5-GW GPU data center… in space NVIDIA-backed startup Starcloud is about to put a data-center-…

🚀 Starcloud wants a 4-km, 5-GW GPU data center… in space

NVIDIA-backed startup Starcloud is about to put a data-center-class GPU in orbit: their Starcloud-1 satellite launches in November with an NVIDIA H100 onboard — roughly 100× more GPU compute than any prior space system. The 60-kg, fridge-sized sat is a first step toward orbital GPU clouds.

Why it matters: today, satellites downlink raw data to Earth for processing. With an H100 upstairs, AI runs where data is born — cutting response times from hours to minutes. That’s big for sensors like SAR, which can spit out ~10 GB/s; instead of shipping it all home, the model can filter, segment, and alert in orbit.

Power & cooling: sunlight is (nearly) constant in orbit and space is an “infinite heat sink” via radiators, so no water-hungry chillers. Starcloud’s roadmap sketches a ~5 GW orbital data center fed by solar + radiator panels about 4 km × 4 km. Future birds aim to integrate Blackwell GPUs for up to 10× more performance versus Hopper.

Biz timeline: Crusoe (the “energy-first” cloud) plans to deploy capacity on Starcloud’s platform from 2026–27. Starcloud projects ~10× lower energy cost than Earth data centers long-term. A white paper even models a 40 MW cluster with a ~$8.2M launch cost — if Starship-class launch prices fall to ~$30/kg (a big if).

CEO Philip Johnston’s bet: within 10 years, most new data centers get built in space. Gamers, rejoice — astronauts might finally run DOOM at ultra.

#Starcloud #H100 #Blackwell #OrbitalCompute #SpaceDatacenter #SAR #EdgeAI
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@science