When StarCloud-1 separated from its rocket and entered orbit, it was much more than a successful deployment; it was an opportunity to introduce a prospect that, until recently, firmly belonged to science fiction-build data centers in space. Traditional data centers use enormous amounts of land, electricity, and freshwater; their weight heavier as the pace of AI adoption goes up. StarCloud believes the next stage of computing won’t be solved on Earth at all: It will be solved above it.
The idea sounds outlandish, even ambitious; yet co-founder Philip Johnston argues that the scale of global compute demand leaves little choice. AI systems are already pushing the limits of what terrestrial grids and cooling systems can handle. On Earth, data centers require huge volumes of water to regulate heat-and communities across the United States are already feeling the strain. In space, sunlight is constant, cooling is natural, and land is no longer a constraint. Even if the odds seem small, Johnston believes the potential impact is enormous.
A breakthrough powered by the first Nvidia H100 GPU in orbit
Recently, StarCloud set a first in the history of the aerospace industry by launching the first ever data-center-grade GPU-the Nvidia H100-into space. No such powerful computer has ever operated in orbit. The mission is not purely symbolic, but the first proof that modern AI hardware can take the radiation, temperature extremes, and vacuum of space. StarCloud had designed, built, and tested the satellite in less than two years, an unusually fast pace for a company which didn’t exist five years ago.
Over the coming months, the team will run a series of world-first experiments: training a small model directly in space, fine-tuning an existing model, and even running Google’s Gemini architecture on the satellite. The goal is modest: prove that GPUs normally used in hyperscale clusters can operate reliably off-planet. If it can run inference and training workloads in orbit with stability, then the foundation for large-scale orbital data centers becomes far more realistic.
Why Falling Launch Costs Made the Idea Possible
It’s a strange route to setting up a space infrastructure business: Johnston did theoretical physics and applied mathematics before becoming a software developer. But a fascination with space began to grow more rapidly as launch costs started to tumble dramatically thanks to reusable rockets from SpaceX – and others who followed in its wake. Cheaper launches open the door to business models that previously sounded absurd. First, StarCloud explored space-based solar power but it wasn’t economical because of inefficiencies in beaming energy back to Earth. Then the team flipped that idea upside down: instead of sending energy down, they’d launch the data centers up.
StarCloud joined Y Combinator on its third attempt. At first, the team was pitching a smaller project-offering cloud compute to satellites. Pretty quickly, YC pushed them to embrace the bigger vision they were too afraid to say out loud: orbital data centers able to carry a significant percentage of Earth’s computing workload. That boldness of such an idea made even Johnston say it was one that sounded too audacious to utter aloud until YC pushed them hard for it. Two years later, they built their first hardware, validated their thermal system, and prepared to launch.
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Inside StarCloud’s rapid development cycle
The headquarters in Redmond combines clean labs with heavy fabrication areas. Engineers assemble radiators, antennas, compute modules and structural components alongside each other. Vibration tables simulate the harsh forces of launch. Much of the hardware is designed and built in house, including thermal management systems. Johnston credits the team’s speed to the blend of expertise among founders-one spent decades working on data centers at Microsoft and on software systems at SpaceX and another designed deployable satellite structures for NASA’s lunar missions.
Together they moved from concept to orbit faster than almost any startup attempting a similar mission. The second satellite, launching next year, will be at least ten times more powerful than the first. It will use Nvidia’s upcoming Blackwell architecture, feature more GPUs and contain high-bandwidth optical communication that can provide near-constant, low-latency links with Earth. Such a dream may be at least a decade away-if it happens at all-but StarCloud has achieved the much-needed first milestone: proof that GPUs can function in space.
A future in which the cloud will no longer remain on Earth: this is no longer a lonely vision, shared as it is by Google, Amazon, SpaceX, among other big technology companies. For Johnston, the hard part is going to be merely proving that orbital GPUs can run affordably and reliably.
Once that hurdle falls, attracting partners and investment and talent becomes dramatically easier. Terrestrial data centers are not going to disappear, but if StarCloud succeeds, many of the new ones built in the coming decade may never break ground on Earth at all. StarCloud-1 may come to be remembered as the moment the cloud really left the planet.
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