For decades, data centres have been the unseen factories of the digital age. They power our payments, our markets, our governance systems, and now, increasingly, artificial intelligence. Yet, these factories are
hitting Earth’s hard limits—energy, water, land, and social acceptance.
A radical idea is moving from the fringes to serious boardrooms and laboratories worldwide: data centres in space. What sounds like science fiction is, in fact, a logical next step in the evolution of compute, energy, and sustainability.
The Earthly Limits of Digital Growth: AI, cloud computing, and real-time digital services are growing at an exponential pace. Data centres already consume a significant and rising share of global electricity. Cooling alone accounts for up to half their energy use, often relying on scarce water resources. Land acquisition, grid bottlenecks, and local opposition further constrain expansion.
Put simply, the digital economy’s appetite is outgrowing Earth’s capacity to host it efficiently. This is not a failure of technology; it is a triumph—one that demands a new frontier.
Why Space Changes the Economics Completely: Space offers a combination of physical advantages no terrestrial location can match.
First, solar power without compromise: Above the atmosphere, solar panels receive uninterrupted, high-intensity sunlight—no clouds, no dust, and no night. Energyavailability becomes continuous and predictable, not intermittent.
Second, cooling without water: In the vacuum of space, heat can be radiated directly into the cold backdrop of the universe. The most complex, wasteful, and water- intensive part of data centre operations simply disappears.
Third, freedom from land and grid constraints: No zoning laws. No local grid overloads. No competition with agriculture or habitation.
When power generation and cooling—two dominant cost drivers—are structurally solved, the economics of computation change fundamentally.
From Theory to Trajectory: This is no longer idle speculation. Global technology leaders and space startups are actively working on orbital compute platforms powered by solar energy and connected by laser-based communications.
The vision is bold but clear: compute clusters in orbit, processing data where energy is cheapest and cleanest, then transmitting insights—not raw data—back to Earth.
As launch costs fall and satellite manufacturing becomes modular, these systems move steadily toward economic viability. What follows is a flywheel effect—lower energy costs enable more compute, which enables better AI models, which, in turn, optimise energy generation, thermal control, and system reliability even further. Reinforcement learning- driven autonomy will make these systems largely self-managing.
Edge Computing at Planetary Scale: The real breakthrough is not just in powering the cloud; it is in reshaping edge computing. Autonomous vehicles, industrial robots, defence systems, logistics networks, and smart cities increasingly need instant decision-making. Instead of routing everything through distant terrestrial data centres, orbital compute nodes can process information closer to the point of action, with global coverage and low latency.
A vehicle, drone, or robot could one day connect directly to a space-based compute
layer—powered by the sun, cooled by the vacuum, and optimised continuously by AI. A Sustainability Imperative, Not a Luxury: Critically, this is also a climate story. Moving energy-intensive computation off Earth reduces pressure on land, water, and fossil-fuel- dependent grids. It allows renewable energy to scale without social friction. While rocket emissions and space debris must be managed responsibly, the long-term environmental equation strongly favours this transition.
Sustainability, increasingly, is not about sacrifice—it is about superior economics aligned with planetary limits.
Why This Matters for India: For India, this moment is strategic. We are one of the world’s fastest-growing digital economies, with leadership in software, fintech, digital public infrastructure, and space technology. As AI adoption accelerates, access to clean, scalable compute will become a national competitiveness issue.
India has the engineering talent, the space heritage, and the policy imagination to participate early in this frontier—whether through research, satellite manufacturing, orbital services, or AI optimisation systems. Those who shape the next layer of global digital infrastructure will not merely consume growth; they will define it.
The Bigger Picture: Data centres in space represent more than a technological leap. They signal a shift in how humanity thinks about constraints.
When energy comes directly from the Sun, cooling comes from the cosmos, and intelligence optimises systems end-to-end, abundance replaces scarcity as the governing paradigm.
This is not about escaping Earth. It is about protecting it by moving the most energy-hungry parts of our civilisation to where physics works in our favour.
The cloud, it turns out, may truly belong in the sky.
Shailesh Haribhakti is a Chartered Accountant, Independent Director, and author of Sustainable Abundance and History of the Future.
