Artificial intelligence technology has grown rapidly in the past couple of years. Tech giants everywhere like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon are investing an estimated $380 billion total on AI infrastructure. The industry is trying to compete with popular chatbot tools like ChatGPT which has over 800 million weekly active users. As this technology is quickly depleting the earth’s natural resources to power its usage, tech companies are now racing to build data centers in space.
One such venture is Google’s Project Suncatcher. Described as a “moonshot” research initiative, Google is already working on launching a prototype into low-earth orbit in 2027. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is also in the race with a similar project. A big part of the motivation is that the planet itself can’t keep up with the energy demands of this explosive technology. In 2024, data centers in the U.S. alone used around 200 terawatt-hours of electricity – that’s roughly what it takes to power the entire country of Thailand for a year!
As communities have been organizing to shut down many of the resource-hungry data center developments, tech giants have had to deal with tighter laws and regulations making it harder to get their projects off the ground. Their solution? Let’s invest these billions in science fiction technology instead so we don’t have to deal with people’s concerns. Meanwhile people in the U.S. are losing access to Medicare, facing massive layoffs, an increase in food prices, and so many other attacks on our basic needs. This system makes it easier to imagine extraterrestrial mega-computers than investing resources to make life comfortable for everyday people.
