Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently hinted at building data centres in space. In an interview with Fox News, Pichai said that the company is working on quantum computing, adding “in that spirit, one of our moon shots is to, how do we one day have data centers in space so that we can better harness the energy from the sun”. Sundar Pichai’s video from the interview was shared by X (formerly Twitter) user – Bourbon Capital in an online post. It caught the attention of Tesla CEO Elon Musk who replied to the post with a single word. “Interesting”, Musk wrote. “At Google, we are always proud of taking moon shots,” Pichai said, adding “… Waymo … has been over a decade in the making.” “We’re working on quantum computing, in that spirit, one of our moon shots is to, how do we one day have data centers in space so that we can better harness the energy from the sun,” he continued.Pichai further said that the company wants to “put these data centers in space closer to the sun”, and will take “first step in 2027”. “We’ll send tiny racks of machines and have them in satellites, test them out, and then start scaling from there. But there’s no doubt to me that a decade or so away will be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers,” Sundar Pichai said in the interview.Notably, this echoes Musk’s November 2025 announcements that SpaceX will pioneer orbital data centers using next-gen Starlink satellites, positioning them as the lowest-cost AI compute option within five years.
