Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is seeking permission to deploy nearly 52,000 satellites capable of handling artificial-intelligence computing into orbit.
The company said in a filing Thursday that its solar-powered AI satellites would complement terrestrial data centers, operating in an environment that would be free from snarls that have complicated the development of facilities on the ground.
“By adding compute capacity to orbit, the constellation will expand total industry capacity and introduce new sources of clean power for compute workloads,” the company said in a filing Thursday with the Federal Communications Commission.
Blue Origin didn’t respond to a request for comment about “Project Sunrise,” as it is calling its proposed orbital data center system. In December, The Wall Street Journal reported the company had a team working on orbital data-center technology.
The company, owned by Jeff Bezos, joins Elon Musk’s SpaceX and start-up Starcloud in filing applications with the FCC that seek permission to deploy AI satellites.
Orbital data centers have many technical hurdles, space engineers have said. Making the systems competitive on cost with traditional infrastructure on the ground also remains a major hurdle.
