China joins race to develop space-based data centers with 5-year plan

It looks like China is getting in on the race to launch data centers into space.

The state-run China Global Television Network (CGTN) reported on Thursday (Jan. 29) that the main Chinese space company, the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), will work on space-based data centers as a part of a larger five-year plan to expand the nation’s already significant presence in space.

The five-year plan also includes efforts to expand resource development, like asteroid mining. Furthermore, the plan also cites space debris monitoring and an expansion into space tourism.

The part of the plan that focuses on data centers will target an “integrated space system architecture combining cloud, edge and terminal technologies,” according to CGTN. CACS says this will allow computing power, storage and transmission from space.

The news comes as U.S. companies are working to launch data centers into space, as terrestrial-based power is becoming more expensive and limited in some parts of the world. This is partially due to the rapid expansion of data centers used to host the massive information systems underlying artificial intelligence.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, for example, plans to launch space-based data centers. These will initially be modified versions of Starlink broadband satellites. But Musk’s typically ambitious long-term plans also include building AI-satellite factories on the moon, which will be launched from the lunar surface via railguns.

Houston-based company Axiom Space launched the first components for its orbiting data center last year, and Google is looking into launching a data center to support its own AI infrastructure. Tech companies are so hot on putting data centers in orbit because competition for the resources that support them — energy and land, for instance — are heating up on Earth. Solar power is plentiful in space, as is real estate, the thinking goes.

Orbiting data centers also came up at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last month. A panel that included European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher discussed ways to ensure that the fast-moving technological developments that underpin society, such as internet infrastructure, are properly protected, as security for new technology often trails its development.