Signal Orbital and lunar data centre payloads have reached early flight tests

Summary

Deloitte lists orbital data centres among the emerging concepts in sustainable computing. Such facilities would run on solar power and shed heat by radiating it directly into space. That design would remove the need for cooling water entirely, one of the resource burdens of terrestrial data centres. Companies are already developing computing capabilities in orbit. Some have carried out early flight tests of data centre payloads intended for the Moon. The executive summary counts potentially orbital data centres among the future challenges and innovations in AI infrastructure, alongside renewable-powered facilities.