Zhang Shancong, director of the Beijing Astro-future Institute of Space Technology and chief scientist at Beijing Orbit Twilight Technology Co, said conventional data centers are hitting limits because they occupy large sites, consume increasing amounts of electricity and are constrained by how much heat can be removed using air cooling in the atmosphere.
The Beijing team proposes using space-based computing platforms that draw on continuous solar power and the low ambient temperature of space, around minus 270 C, to run servers and remove heat through passive radiation, positioning orbital facilities as a candidate architecture for future large-scale computing demand.
According to the institute, the plan calls for a constellation of 16 centralized space data centers in a dawn-dusk orbit 700 to 800 kilometers above Earth, where the satellites would remain in sunlight for most of each orbit and together could receive about 16 gigawatts of solar-generated power.
Zhang outlined a three-phase roadmap for the project, starting between 2025 and 2027 with demonstrations of in-orbit power supply and thermal management technologies, supported by launches of experimental computing satellites and data-relay spacecraft to build up a small but growing orbital computing network.
Between 2028 and 2030, the second phase will concentrate on driving down the cost of space-based computing so that processing tasks carried out in orbit can approach cost parity with terrestrial data centers, a step the institute views as essential for broader commercial adoption.
From 2031 to 2035, the final phase aims to deploy larger orbital facilities with much greater solar collection and radiative cooling capacity, with the long-term goal of training and running advanced artificial intelligence systems directly in space once the constellation and supporting infrastructure reach sufficient scale.
Related Links
Beijing Astro-future Institute of Space Technology
The Chinese Space Program - News, Policy and Technology
China News from SinoDaily.com
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