MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There is now a satellite in space that can run artificial intelligence. It launched yesterday and belongs to Google, which is a financial supporter of NPR. NPR's John Ruwitch reports the satellite is part of a research project to pave the way for orbiting data centers.
JOHN RUWITCH, BYLINE: The project is called Suncatcher, and the idea is to harness the sun's nearly unlimited and free energy to run data centers in space. Travis Beals runs the project.
TRAVIS BEALS: Solar's the best way, really, to power things. And it turns out the best way to tap into solar power may actually be in space.
RUWITCH: Google and other companies are looking into the sci-fi-sounding concept of space-based data centers because demand for AI is skyrocketing. The industry's supply of computational power can't keep up. Plus, there are energy constraints here on Earth and growing political opposition to data centers. As with many things that have to do with space, though, it's complicated. Google's satellite has four AI chips on it that they've deployed in data centers on Earth. Now they'll test them in space. But one problem is that chips get hot.
BRANDON LUCIA: And that's, on Earth, not as much a problem.
RUWITCH: Brandon Lucia is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
LUCIA: You can push water through the system, or you can blow air over the components, and they'll cool off. In space, though, all you have is radiation.
RUWITCH: Google is going to use radiator panels to wick the heat away. But it says it can only run the chips in the satellite for 15 minutes at a time before pausing to let them cool. Eventually, Google hopes to launch constellations of similar satellites to form floating data centers. Each satellite will have dozens of chips. And they'll communicate by laser, which is fast. But the distances are long, so there will be latency - a challenge to ponder. Also, how do you fix a broken data center in space? Travis Beals again.
BEALS: People need to know that this is a moonshot. It's going to take a long time.
RUWITCH: He says it will not be a straightforward journey.
BEALS: I'm sure we'll have some surprises along the way. And if we didn't, in fact, I would say that probably means we're not being aggressive enough.
RUWITCH: Google plans to launch two more satellites next year to test the laser communication system.
John Ruwitch, NPR News.
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