Why Does Google Want Data Centers in Space?

Sundar Pichai says data centers in space should make sense for the rise in compute Google expects to need. A sun-synchronous orbit would give 24/7 access to the most abundant energy available, which he says fits that growth. The project is two to three years old. He compares it with bets that looked like science fiction and later became real: quantum, about 10 years in, and Waymo, almost 20 years after the DARPA Grand Challenge car Stanley.

The work is still hard, and the team uses disciplined milestones. A recent one was sending TPUs to space. During this conversation he was waiting on a hello-world signal from them. He says Google will keep investing.