SpaceX seeks green light for orbital AI constellation

SpaceX has asked the US Federal Communications Commission for permission to launch up to 1 million satellites that would act as solar-powered data centres for artificial intelligence workloads. In its filing, the company argues that moving computing infrastructure into low Earth orbit would tap near-constant solar energy, cut operating and maintenance costs, and reduce the environmental impact tied to land-based, water-cooled data centres.

The proposed constellation would sit between 500km and 2,000km above Earth, use laser links between satellites, and rely on radiative cooling to shed heat into space instead of traditional cooling systems. SpaceX says the plan depends on its Starship heavy-lift rocket to deliver large volumes of hardware cheaply into orbit, and claims on-orbit processing could scale faster and at lower cost than new terrestrial facilities. While the company is seeking approval for up to 1 million satellites, past Starlink plans have requested far more satellites than SpaceX has ultimately launched. The move comes as SpaceX is reportedly considering a record IPO and discussing a possible merger with Elon Musk’s xAI, aimed at shoring up competition with AI players such as Google, Meta and OpenAI.