Start-up company Starcloud has raised $170 million U.S. at a $1.1 billion U.S. valuation as interest in the commercial space sector intensifies.
Starcloud specializes in orbital compute infrastructure, an area that is gaining attention as companies such as ?SpaceX consider moving artificial intelligence (A.I.) data ?centres into outer space.
Starcloud has announced plans for an 88,000-satellite data centre constellation and says it will use the new capital to ?fund satellites, manufacturing, ?and future launch contracts.
The company has not yet reached the stage of commercial operations or profitability. Starcloud remains a privately held concern.
In February, Elon Musk's SpaceX revealed plans for a million-satellite orbital data centre network. Blue Origin, run by Amazon's (AMZN) Jeff Bezos, has similar ambitions.
Starcloud is currently working with partners such as Nvidia (NVDA) and the cloud unit of Google parent company Alphabet (GOOGL).
Last November, Starcloud launched a satellite carrying Nvidia's H100 microchips and processors, demonstrating A.I. ?training in orbit, which was an industry-first.
While A.I. data centres in space would ease power and land constraints here on Earth, high ?launch costs remain a challenge for the nascent industry.
However, Starcloud expects the costs to decline enough by 2029 to make space-based data centres cost-competitive with Earth facilities.
As a private company, Starcloud’s stock doesn’t trade on a public exchange.
Related Stories
