Artificial intelligence is a foundational technology that could help us tackle humanity’s greatest challenges. Now, we’re asking where we can go next to unlock its fullest potential. Today we’re announcing Project Suncatcher, our new research moonshot to one day scale machine learning in space. Working backward from this potential future, we’re exploring how an interconnected network of solar-powered satellites, equipped with our Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) AI chips, could harness the full power of the Sun.
Inspired by other Google moonshots like autonomous vehicles and quantum computing, we’ve begun work on the foundational work needed to one day make this future possible. We’re excited that this is a growing area of exploration, and our initial research, shared today in a preprint paper, describes our approach to satellite constellation design, control, and communication, and also our initial learnings from radiation testing Google TPUs.
Our next step is a learning mission in partnership with Planet to launch two prototype satellites by early 2027 that will test our hardware in orbit, laying the groundwork for a future era of massively-scaled computation in space.
