Google Negotiates Orbital Data Center Launch Agreement with SpaceX

According to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, Google is in advanced discussions with SpaceX over a rocket launch agreement. The collaboration aims to support Google's expansion plans to deploy data centers in orbit.

The two parties are currently working to compete in the emerging field of orbital data centers. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has previously stated that space computing power is the next frontier for his rocket company. In addition to communicating with SpaceX, Google is also discussing potential launch agreements with other rocket launch companies. Google announced a satellite prototype launch plan called "Project Sunrise" as early as last year.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai pointed out in an interview last November that space data centers will become the norm in ten years. Google is currently working with Planet Labs to manufacture relevant prototype satellites.

This forward-looking technology is currently the core selling point for SpaceX to investors. The company plans to go public this summer, and the market predicts that it will be the largest IPO in history. Google is not only an early investor in SpaceX but also currently holds 6.1% of its shares. Don Harrison, a Google executive, is also a member of SpaceX's board of directors, and the relationship between the two parties is extremely close.

SpaceX has recently made several large-scale deployments in the computing power field. The company reached an agreement with AI company Anthropic last week to provide ground computing resources based on Nvidia GPUs. As part of the agreement, Anthropic expressed its intention to cooperate in the field of orbital data centers in the future. SpaceX has previously applied to regulatory authorities for permission to launch up to one million satellites.

Orbital computing is regarded as a potential solution to the limitations of land and electricity for terrestrial data centers. These facilities are planned to be powered by solar panels, thereby avoiding the energy bottleneck of traditional data centers. Despite the broad prospects, the engineering implementation in the space environment remains extremely challenging. Many industry experts still have doubts about the commercial feasibility of orbital computing at this stage.

In the process of preparing for the listing, SpaceX is reshaping its balance sheet through a series of acquisitions and cooperations. This includes the acquisition of xAI and the option to acquire the coding startup Cursor in the future. SpaceX has announced that it will invest tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure construction. Its ground agreement with Anthropic is expected to officially deliver 300 megawatts of new computing power by the end of May this year.