Will Data Centers in Orbit Launch a New Phase of Sustainability?

As data center demand continues to boom, an answer to sustainability needs might be found in Earth’s orbit. 

Power consumption in the US market is expected to increase from 17 GW in 2022 to 35 GW by 2030, according to McKinsey & Company.

While companies race to keep up with that demand, building more data centers to support cloud operations and increasingly AI models, it is becoming clear how hungry the industry is for limited resources. Data centers demand power, water, land, and critical raw materials.  

While hyperscalers and industry stakeholders increasingly set and work toward more terrestrial sustainable practices, there is also the more real than ever possibility of looking skyward for a solution.  

The space industry is a new frontier of innovation that offers a vast, largely untapped environment full of business opportunities for tech firms. Lunar data centers are one possibility.

Now, a new study led by Thales Alenia Space, a space systems manufacturer based in France, and funded by the European Commission, found promising results for the technological feasibility and environmental feasibility of launching data centers into space.  

InformationWeek spoke to an expert with Thales Alenia Space and leaders in the data center industry about challenges that data centers face on Earth and the possibility of launching them into space.

Related:Could ‘Flying Data Centers’ Solve the Industry’s Sustainability Woes?

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