By Charlotte Lam
Publication Date: 2026-05-18 10:53:00
Tech giants are increasingly looking beyond Earth to solve one of AI’s biggest growing pains: where to put all the computers.
Google is reportedly in talks with Elon Musk‘s SpaceX over a rocket-launch deal to place data centres into orbit, according to Wall Street Journal reports earlier this week.
The appeal of space-based infrastructure is straightforward and easily understandable. Every time someone uses ChatGPT, streams a film or searches the web, the response comes from a data centre – vast, energy-hungry warehouses of computers that consume enormous amounts of electricity and water.
The world now suddenly needs a lot more of them because of the AI boom, and space offers a compelling alternative of uninterrupted solar power and no land use.
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Musk has repeatedly said…
