Exploring a space-based, scalable AI infrastructure system design

Google Research · 8 months ago

Google's Project Suncatcher proposes deploying solar-powered satellites carrying TPUs in low-Earth orbit to create a space-based AI compute infrastructure. A bench-scale demonstrator achieved 1.6 terabits per second transmission between satellites flying within hundreds of meters of each other, and Google's Trillium TPU hardware showed only minor effects from radiation after cumulative doses nearly three times a five-year mission's expected exposure. Two prototype satellites are planned to launch by early 2027 to validate optical inter-satellite links and distributed machine learning operations in space.