Google and SpaceX are reportedly in talks to build data centers in orbit

• 
  
  Google and SpaceX are reportedly in talks over data centers in orbit
  
  


• 
  
  It's the infrastructure that many big tech companies are investing in
  
  


• 
  
  However, there are concerns over how feasible the technology actually is
  
  

There's a lot of effort and money going into plans to put

data centers in space

— mostly to meet the growing demands of AI processing — and

Google

and SpaceX are now reportedly in talks to clutter up Earth's orbit even further.

As per

The Wall Street Journal

and "people familiar with the discussions", talks are underway between the two giant tech companies. Google would provide the data centers, and SpaceX would provide the rockets to get them where they need to be.

Latest Videos From

But can it work?

Given that so many big companies are investing in this technology, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it's all ready to go — but that's not quite the case.

As it stands, the tech isn't currently available due to various engineering challenges, and people like OpenAI's Sam Altman

don't think this is a feasible idea

in the short-term.

On the plus side: there's a lot of room up in space (though not quite as much as there used to be),

and a lot of power

, thanks to the constant availability of solar energy. It wouldn't be necessary to disrupt neighborhoods or overload power grids every time a giant new data center needed to be built.

However, this is also incredibly costly and incredibly difficult from a technical perspective. Current data center technology isn't built to withstand the extremes of space, and there's also the question of how repairs can be carried out in orbit.

For those

who fully believe

in the future of the technology, those problems can be overcome given time, funding, and further research. However, it's going to be a while before we see this working at scale.

Follow TechRadar on Google News



and





add us as a preferred source




to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.