Jeff Bezos throws his hat in the ring for an orbital data center megaconstellation, too

“Space-based data centers will be a complement to terrestrial infrastructure.” A little more than a month ago, SpaceX founder Elon Musk put down a marker of his intent to saturate low-Earth orbit with up to 1 million satellites. Its purpose? Provide always-on data center services around the planet. Now, Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has done something similar with a filing to the Federal Communications Commission of his own, proposing a constellation of up to 51,600 satellites operating in Sun-synchronous orbits at altitudes ranging from 500 to 1,800 km. Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, sought the authority to do this and is calling the constellation “Project Sunrise.” In its filing, Blue Origin argues that terrestrial AI-based data centers will face difficulties scaling up to meet computing demand. “The insatiable demand for AI workloads has led to the rapid buildout of terrestrial data centers globally,” the filing states. “Space-based data centers will be a complement to terrestrial infrastructure by introducing a new compute tier that operates independently of Earth-based constraints.” In addition to SpaceX and Blue Origin, Starcloud, a smaller company backed by N