Project Suncatcher
How it works
A constellation of TPU-equipped satellites holds a tight formation, exchanging data over high-bandwidth optical links to form a distributed compute cluster. Power comes from solar panels (near-constant exposure); heat is rejected by heat pipes and radiators. Key challenges are radiation tolerance, precise formation keeping and inter-satellite link bandwidth.
Problem solved
Scaling terrestrial AI data centres runs into power, land and cooling limits. Suncatcher explores whether orbit — with abundant solar power and radiative cooling — could one day move part of ML workloads off Earth.
Components
Compute nodes of the constellation carrying Google TPU accelerators.
High-bandwidth laser communication binding the cluster.
Solar panels (up to 8× power) plus heat pipes/radiators.