Here's something you don't hear every day: Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) (GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai wants to launch data centers into space, and he's aiming for a 2027 test flight. The reason? Earth is running out of juice to power the AI revolution.
Pichai has doubled down on Google's "Suncatcher" initiative, which sounds like science fiction but is apparently very real. The plan involves sending servers into orbit where they can soak up solar energy without all that pesky atmosphere getting in the way. And yes, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk noticed. His reaction on X? One word: "Interesting."
Why Space Data Centers Make Sense (Sort Of)
In a recent Fox Business interview, Pichai laid out the vision. AI data centers consume absurd amounts of energy, and ground-based infrastructure is struggling to keep up. Solar panels in space, however, can harvest energy far more efficiently than anything on Earth because there's no atmosphere blocking the sun's rays.
"We want to put these data centers in space closer to the sun," Pichai explained. He described the project as a "moonshot" similar to Waymo or Google Quantum AI, which tells you how ambitious this is.
The timeline starts with baby steps. In 2027, Google plans to launch "tiny, tiny racks of machines" onto satellites to test whether servers can survive the thermal extremes and reliability challenges of orbit. If that works, Pichai predicts that within a decade, processing data in space could become routine.
Enter SpaceX and Starship
Here's where things get interesting for Musk. While Pichai handles the computing strategy, actually getting heavy server hardware into orbit requires serious launch power. That's where SpaceX comes in.
After seeing a clip of Pichai discussing the 2027 timeline, Musk posted his brief but telling response on December 9. This wasn't the first time SpaceX came up in the conversation. Back in November, Pichai openly acknowledged that the project is "only possible because of SpaceX's massive advances in launch technology."
Industry watchers, including Cathie Wood's ARK Invest, have identified SpaceX's Starship as the "critical" piece of the puzzle. According to ARK's analysis, only Starship has the payload capacity and cost structure that could make orbital AI infrastructure economically viable. You need to lift a lot of weight to make this work, and Starship is currently the only vehicle designed to do it at scale.
The AI Energy Crunch Is Real
This isn't just Google being creative for fun. The tech industry faces a genuine power crisis. Gas turbine backlogs stretch for years, and electrical grids are straining under the weight of AI's energy demands. Traditional data centers are hitting their limits.
Project Suncatcher aims to create what Google calls a "zero-carbon, always-on compute layer." If the 2027 tests with Google's Trillium-generation TPUs prove successful, the company plans to scale up operations significantly. We could be looking at a future where meaningful chunks of AI training happen off-planet.
Alphabet's Strong Market Performance
While Pichai dreams of space racks, investors have been quite happy with Google's earthbound performance. GOOG shares climbed 65.12% year-to-date, substantially outpacing the Nasdaq Composite's 22.12% gain and the Nasdaq 100's 22.18% increase over the same period.
The Class C shares performed even better, jumping 78.17% over the year and 79.77% over the past six months. Market data indicates that GOOG maintains strong price momentum across short, medium, and long-term periods, though value rankings remain poor.
Whether orbital data centers become reality or remain an expensive experiment, Google is clearly thinking bigger than most about how to power the next generation of AI. And with Musk finding it "interesting," at least the launch capability might be there when they're ready.