Blue Origin has disclosed plans for an orbital Artificial Intelligence data center system in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission. The company has asked the agency for permission to deploy 51,600 satellites. The project, called Project Sunrise, is designed to launch and operate a constellation that can provide computing capacity for Artificial Intelligence uses.
Project Sunrise’s satellites will be placed in sun-synchronous orbits at altitudes between 311 and 1,118 miles. Each layer in the constellation will have between 300 to 1,000 satellites and will be approximately 3 to 6 miles apart. Blue Origin said in its filing that the constellation would complement terrestrial data centers.
Blue Origin said the satellites will be equipped with solar panels so they can gather energy from the sun. The company said the orbital Artificial Intelligence data center will lower the “marginal cost of compute capacity compared to terrestrial alternatives,” because the satellites will be powered by the sun, won’t need land and won’t need grid infrastructure. Blue Origin added that Project Sunrise will “enable US companies developing and using Artificial Intelligence to flourish, accelerating breakthroughs in machine learning, autonomous systems and predictive analytics.”
The filing places Blue Origin alongside SpaceX among companies pursuing space-based Artificial Intelligence infrastructure. In January, SpaceX asked the FCC for permission to deploy 1 million satellites for its own constellation. SpaceX said at the time that “orbital data centers are the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for Artificial Intelligence computing power.”
