The Emergence of Sustainable Orbital Data Center Infrastructure

Mapped: The World’s Data Centers by Country (2026)

By Selva Ozelli Esq, CPA, Author of Sustainably Investing in Digital Assets Globally

This is the first article in a series of articles I am writing for Irish Tech News  to explore the financial, technical, legal aspects of utilizing space solar energized orbital data centers that are rapidly evolving into “AI Factories, designed specifically to convert massive amounts of electrical power into intelligence, measured in tokens”  around the world.

My new series is a follow up to an interview ITN conducted with me in 2020 exploring how space solar energy could sustainably energize the tokenization of the global  financial markets which is projected to grow to multi-trillion dollars by the end of the decade.

The growth of Sustainable Orbital Data Center Infrastructure

Only five years after this interview, on December 10, 2025 PowerBank Corporation (Canada) launched the inaugural  DeStarlink Genesis-1 satellite , marking Orbit AI’s (Singapore)  first step toward building its Orbital Cloud network — an architecture where AI compute, connectivity, and blockchain-verified processing occur directly in low-Earth satellites, powered by space solar energy.  Such  decentralized space infrastructure combining AI computing, global connectivity, and blockchain verification  are likely to [gradually] take over functions of hyperscale earthbound data centers going forward.

About Hyperscale Data Centers

The United States is the  leader in data center hosting, commanding over 40% of the world’s facilities [over 5,000 facilities as of 2026], driven by a head start by US tech giants such as such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Oracle and Google Cloud, which made high-volume investment in AI.

At the start of this year, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence, which advances his America’s AI Action Plan.  This was followed by the U.S. Department of Energy launching the Genesis Mission, a historic national effort that will use the power of artificial intelligence to accelerate discovery science, strengthen national security, and drive energy innovation. These policies have prompted several US based hyperscale data center companies to explore the integration of orbital solar energy for energy-intensive blockchain and AI verification processes.

Hyperscale cloud providers are massive-scale data center service providers that operate extensive, globally dispersed data centers to deliver on-demand computing resources. These providers are characterized by their ability to scale horizontally and vertically to support millions of virtual machines and vast workloads by integrating edge cloud technology, to extend their services to smaller, distributed micro-data centers and network points closer to users for lower latency, better performance in remote areas.

Hyperscale cloud providers store data for AI and use tokenization in two key ways: for AI model processing and for data security/compliance. They are the physical infrastructure that makes data center operations possible.  However, hyperscale data centers are experiencing a massive surge in power and water demand driven by the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). These facilities, often requiring 100+ megawatts (MW) and sometimes up to 1 gigawatt (GW) for “AI factories,” are redefining data centers as critical infrastructure that require consistent, 24/7 power.  Therefore, US hyperscale cloud providers are exploring the concept of placing solar collection and data centers in orbit to leverage 24/7 constant solar energy and alleviate terrestrial power grid strain.

The physical targeting of US based commercial data centers in the Persian Gulf during the U.S.-Iran conflict in March 2026 marked a historic first and a shift in warfare, where digital infrastructure was directly attacked and damaged. Following these events, the urgency for orbital data centers has increased, as these space-based solutions offer immunity to terrestrial kinetic strikes.

Where Orbital Data Center AI Testing Began

Since mid 2021 the  International Space Station (ISS), an orbiting space laboratory,  has operated the HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 (SBC-2) a Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) (USA) project developed collaboratively with KIOXIA (Japan), that is supported by a multinational coalition –excluding China– to provide commercial edge computing and AI capabilities in orbit to researchers from:

• United States (via NASA which leverages Microsoft Azure Space for cloud connectivity, Axiom Space, Cornell University, Titan Space Technologies)
• Russia (Roscosmos),
• Japan (JAXA),
• Canada (CSA),
• European Space Agency (ESA).
• India (students via Codewars competition)

ISS’s SBC-2 has been used for  rapid processing of scientific research data to cut analysis time from hours to minutes. The system supports diverse experiments, including AI-based imagery analysis, 3D printing simulations, and 5G network testing reducing reliance on Earth-based processing, to enable real-time insights for experiments on the space station.

China’s Tiangong space research laboratory in low-Earth orbit (LEO), began construction in 2021 following the country’s exclusion from the International Space Station (ISS) due to U.S. geopolitical restrictions. Assembled between 2021 and 2022, China’s Tiangong space research laboratory acts as a central hub for microgravity research, space technology development, and in-orbit artificial intelligence applications, such as the Wukong AI model.

China is also actively advancing a “Space Cloud” orbital data center infrastructure by launching on May 14, 2025, the first cluster of 12 AI-powered satellites with plans for a 2,800-satellite network to be completed by 2030. These solar powered satellites are designed for on-orbit, high-speed data processing for industrial-scale operations designed to move energy-intensive AI computing from Earth to orbit, to support advanced digital applications, including the e-CNY (digital yuan) ecosystem which began its pilot phase in April 2020.   Earlier this year e-CNY pivoted to a mature, interest-bearing model, with wallet balances accruing interest at demand deposit rates starting January 1, 2026. This major upgrade, designed to boost adoption, marks the e-CNY as the world’s first interest-bearing Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

About Space Solarized Orbital Data Centers (ODCs)

Space-based, solar-powered orbital data centers are a burgeoning niche tech frontier to launch satellites equipped with advanced GPUs and AI hardware for high-performance computing, directly in space to alleviate terrestrial –the intense energy, cooling, and land-use — constraints facing AI infrastructure on Earth.

Elon Musk the founder and CEO of Space X has positioned ODCs as a key component of SpaceX’s future, aligning with the company’s planned initial public offering (IPO) in 2026 following its merger with his AI company, xAI.  Musk explained that energy and water constraints on Earth are becoming the primary limiters for artificial intelligence compute scaling, making space-based data centers a “logical extension, especially with reduction in launch cost and advances in solar efficiency”.  By placing data centers in orbit, these facilities aim to harness continuous solar energy and the natural cooling of space to create a more sustainable AI computing infrastructure to convert massive amounts of electrical power into intelligence, measured in tokens.  Musk has predicted that within two to three years, the lowest-cost way to generate AI compute will be in space, bypassing terrestrial environmental impacts.

Advantages of ODCs are  high 24/7 solar irradiance for power, reduced terrestrial cooling needs, providing a significant advantage in compute speed by primarily reducing latency through vacuum-based data transmission and local “edge cloud” processing. By processing data in orbit, these facilities eliminate the lengthy round-trip delays required to send raw information to Earth for analysis decreasing need for terrestrial infrastructure.  This provides significant advantages for the financial sector by reducing latency for long-haul data routing by allowing signals to travel faster than they would through fiber-optic cables on Earth, which is critical for time-sensitive financial operations.

Hurdles to ODCs are the cost of ODCs which  could be  at least three times that of the comparable terrestrial one.  Replicating the output of a single hyperscale terrestrial data center could require, hundreds of  satellites equipped with radiator systems in a vacuum, with radiation hardening its electronics.  Space debris and night light pollution other impacts are being pointed out as hurdles to overcome.

Selva Ozelli Esq, CPA is an international digital asset legal  expert  and author of Sustainably Investing in Digital Assets Globally.  Her  writings are translated into 45 languages and republished in over 200 global publications.  She is recognized as an expert media/TV commentator on global digital asset regulation, tax and technology matters.

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