ISLAMABAD: Google announced that it will launch a satellite into space next week carrying its advanced electronic chips as it evaluates space for potentially hosting AI infrastructure.
Google will undertake the project as a joint venture with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
A Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU, is a custom application-specific integrated circuit designed by Google Cloud to accelerate artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads.
Google announced that it would send a prototype satellite carrying its TPUs into low Earth orbit as part of Project Suncatcher.
Project Suncatcher is the company’s long-term research effort to test whether space could one day host large-scale AI computing infrastructure.
Announcing the launch on X, Google CEO Sundar Pichai referenced Neil Armstrong’s famous phrase from the Moon landing.
Pichai wrote, “One small step for TPUs....”
The first in-orbit test will fly on SpaceX’s upcoming Transporter-18 rideshare mission in partnership with Planet Labs. It is meant to determine whether Google’s AI hardware, TPUs, can withstand launch forces and operate in space under radiation and extreme temperatures.
Elon Musk, reacting to the announcement, said on X that space will soon host almost all of humanity’s computing resources.
“The amount of compute in space will obviously round up to 100% of all compute,” he wrote.