The largest orbital compute cluster is open for business
For all the hype about data centers in space, there just aren’t very many GPUs up there. As that starts to change, the near-term business of orbital compute is starting to take shape. The largest compute cluster currently in orbit was launched by Canada’s Kepler Communications in January, and boasts about 40 Nvidia Orin edge processors onboard 10 operational satellites, all linked together by laser communications links. The company now has 18 customers, and announced its newest on Monday — Sophia Space, a startup that will test the software for its unique orbital computer onboard Kepler’s constellation. Experts expect that we won’t see large-scale data centers like those envisioned by SpaceX or Blue Origin until the 2030s. The first step will be processing data that…
