Google's parent company, Alphabet, plans to send its self-developed AI chip into space on Thursday using the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, taking a crucial step towards establishing a space data center.
The launch was conducted at 11:15 a.m. Pacific Time at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California.
SpaceX refers to space supercomputers as the next frontier in artificial intelligence infrastructure, advocating that orbit has "unlimited space" as a way to overcome various social obstacles encountered in building data centers on land. In this unmanned "Transporter-18" crewed launch mission, SpaceX will carry multiple Planet Labs satellites, including one solar-powered prototype satellite equipped with Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU).
This is the first in-orbit test of the Alphabet "Sun Catcher Project." This high-risk research and development project was announced by Google in November 2025, with the goal of creating a reliable AI computing infrastructure that can operate continuously in space and be powered by solar energy.
Alphabet stated in the official blog introducing this launch plan that the Catcher Plan aims to "explore whether future space can accommodate scalable machine learning infrastructure."
Alphabet is an important investor in SpaceX. In June of this year, SpaceX completed a IPO of unprecedented scale in history. Although the AI departments of the two companies are competitors, they maintain a deep cooperative relationship. Currently, the SpaceX equity held by Alphabet is valued at over 82 billion US dollars.
As mentioned in the blog post by Alphabet, satellites in low Earth orbit "can almost continuously receive sunlight, and the amount of solar power generated can be up to 8 times that on the ground." The company's long-term vision is to "interconnect multiple groups of satellite constellations to process even larger AI computing tasks in orbit."
The parent company of Google has previously completed ground tests of the TPU running the AI task in the laboratory at the University of California, Davis, but the actual performance of the chip in the harsh environment of low Earth orbit remains unknown.
The SpaceX led by Musk also announced a plan: to independently develop orbital data centers. The entire system will consist of a large number of satellite clusters manufactured at the factory in Redmond, Washington. These satellites will be equipped with graphics processors, and the production of solar panels will be assisted by Tesla, Musk's automotive company.
Earlier this year, Musk stated that space data centers would become the lowest-cost AI training solution, "which could be implemented within two to three years at the latest." Gwenne Shortwell, the chief operating officer of SpaceX, said at an event in September that the company would deploy "space supercomputing" in 2027.
Industry experts point out that even if space data centers become feasible in the future, they are still an unattainable concept at this stage. On one hand, there is a shortage of rocket launch capacity and high costs; on the other hand, orbital data centers require cooling systems and chips that can withstand extreme temperatures, as well as effective radiation protection. The problems of space debris and crowded orbits also pose constraints to the implementation of this solution.
This "Transporter-18" launch is the second milestone event for SpaceX in a single day. On Thursday, the company will also carry out NASA, a manned mission number 13, from Cape Canaveral in Florida, transporting astronauts to the International Space Station to begin a six-month stay in orbit.
