Google’s planned satellite launch set to test TPUs in space
The organisation will launch a prototype satellite as a first in-orbit test of Project Suncatcher. Read more: Google’s planned satellite launch set to test TPUs in space
Google is set to launch a prototype satellite next week as part of Project Suncatcher, a research initiative to study how its tensor processing units (TPUs) operate in space. The mission, aboard the upcoming Transporter-18 rideshare mission with SpaceX, aims to gather data on the physical stress and radiation effects of spaceflight on TPUs.
Senior director for Paradigms of Intelligence Travis Beals explained that low Earth orbit provides satellites with nearly constant sunlight, generating up to eight times more solar power than on Earth. The satellite, designed to endure intense vibrations and accelerations equivalent to ten times Earth's gravity, will test TPUs under harsh conditions.
Google has already tested TPUs in a proton beam facility at UC Davis's Crocker Nuclear Laboratory, where they showed remarkable resilience to radiation. However, the real test lies in how the TPUs perform in actual space. Beals emphasized that this mission is the first step in a methodical engineering process to prove that scalable AI compute can operate in space.
The launch is part of Google's £13bn investment in Europe over two years, including data centre build-outs and clean energy projects.
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