New Delhi: Researchers from Google have worked out the details of a constellation of compact, solar-powered satellites equipped with Google’s Tensor Processing Units, connected by optical links in space. Such constellations could be scaled rapidly for deploying AI compute in Earth orbit, and can minimise the impact on terrestrial resources. The constellation uses the Sun as the energy source, which emits more than 100 trillion times the total electricity production of humans. The research tackles the challenges of high-bandwidth communications between satellites, orbital dynamics, and the effect of radiation on computing.

The modular design of the constellation allows for rapid scaling. The satellites can best operate in a dawn to dusk sun-synchronous low-Earth orbit, which would allow t

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