Thales Alenia Space leading feasibility study for data centres in space

The consortium is working on ASCEND (Advanced Space Cloud for European Net zero emission and Data sovereignty) as part of the Horizon Europe research program.

Yves Durand, director of technologies and ASCEND project leader, explained that the objective of the study is ‘neutralise’ the exponential increase of energy demand associated with data centres.

To achieve this the consortium will explore the installation of in orbit data centres powered by solar power plants generating several hundred megawatts. The only link with the ground would be high-throughput Internet connections based on optical communications.

The study will first look at the carbon emissions from the production and launch of these space infrastructures, assessing whether they would be significantly lower than emissions generated by ground-based data centres.

“Data centres use so much energy that their carbon footprint is projected to surpass the aviation footprint in a few years,” Durand told The Engineer by email. “Carbon free energy - renewable or nuclear - will be limited in Europe, to the point that very strong digital usage limitations are envisioned to comply with the Paris Agreement.”