A European initiative that studies the feasibility of building data centres in space has found that the project could be economically viable.
Space data centres could also help in reducing the carbon footprint of the infrastructure that is powering the AI intelligence boom.
Thales Alenia Space, coordinator of the project, said a Horizon Europe-funded feasibility study confirmed deploying them into space could offer a more sustainable solution for hosting and processing data.
The project could also generate a return on investment of several billion between now and 2050, the company said.
The environmental impact of data centres
Data centres provide the computing power that AI models need to run, but they also consume a lot of energy and water.
The rise of ChatGPT and similar AI applications kicked off a race among technology companies to build more data centres, raising concerns about the potential environmental impact.
The study sought to compare the environmental impacts of space-based and Earth-based data centres, the company said.
Moving forward, the company plans to consolidate and optimise its results.
Space centres could mitigate these impacts
Space data centres would be powered by solar energy outside the Earth’s atmosphere, aiming to contribute to the European Union’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, the project coordinator said.
“The results of the Ascend study confirm that deploying these centres in space could transform the European digital landscape, offering a more eco-friendly and sovereign solution for hosting and processing data,” said Thales Alenia CTO, Christophe Valorge.
According to the International Energy Agency, data centres and data transmission networks accounted for about 0.9% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, or 0.6% of total emissions.
However, the study found that space data centres would require the development of a launcher ten times less emissive over its entire lifecycle to significantly reduce carbon-dioxide emissions generated by the processing and storage of digital data.
