这颗名为“Project Suncatcher”的卫星原型位于加利福尼亚州旧金山的Planet Labs公司设施内。
A prototype of the Project Suncatcher satellite at the Planet Labs facility in San Francisco, California.
Planet Labs刚刚将一颗体积相当于冰箱大小的卫星送入太空，这是该公司开展的一项研究项目的一部分；该公司希望这项研究能为未来在太空中运行、由太阳能驱动的人工智能数据中心铺平道路。
Planet Labs PBC Google just put a refrigerator-sized satellite into space, part of a research project the company hopes can pave the way for orbiting AI data centers powered by the sun.
这颗原型卫星配备了四颗专为机器学习设计的专用芯片（称为“Tensor Processing Units”，简称TPU），这些芯片已被谷歌应用于地球上的数据中心。由于散热限制，这些芯片每次只能运行谷歌的Gemma AI模型15分钟，主要用于处理简单的查询任务。谷歌在一篇博客文章中表示，此次任务将测试这些TPU如何应对“太空飞行过程中的物理压力以及太空中的辐射和极端温度环境”。
The prototype satellite has four specialty chips in it called Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, that Google designed for machine learning and has already deployed in data centers on Earth. The chips will run a version of the company's Gemma AI model for 15 minutes at a time due to heat management constraints, using the open weight model to answer simple queries. In a blog post Google said the mission will gauge how the TPUs handle "the physical stress of spaceflight and the radiation and thermal extremes of space."
近年来，人工智能技术的应用迅速增长，从而推动了数据中心的需求。在谷歌今年5月的年度开发者峰会上，首席执行官Sundar Pichai表示，对人工智能服务的需求已经超过了供应量；他预计今年的资本支出将达到1800亿至1900亿美元——是2022年的六倍以上——谷歌将利用这笔资金建设计算基础设施并研发新的芯片。
Use of AI has grown sharply over the last few years, fueling demand for data centers. At Google's annual developer summit in May, CEO Sundar Pichai said demand for AI services exceeds supply and he expects capital expenditures this year to be $180 billion to $190 billion — more than six times as large as in 2022 — as the company builds computing infrastructure and develops chips.
在地球上，人们对大规模部署耗电量大的数据中心的反对声日益高涨；然而，谷歌却是少数几家致力于将数据中心送入太空的公司之一。在太空中，能源几乎取之不尽且不存在抗议活动。
At a time when opposition to the proliferation of power-hungry data centers on Earth is growing Google is one of a handful of companies advancing plans to put them in orbit where there is virtually unlimited free energy and no protesters. "The sun puts out almost all of the power in our solar system.
“太阳提供了太阳系中几乎所有的能量；人类所利用的其他能源仅占太阳总能量的极小部分，”Project Suncatcher项目的负责人Travis Beals说道，“因此，从某种意义上说，这个项目旨在探索利用太阳能来驱动人工智能计算的最佳方式。”这颗卫星将处于太阳同步轨道上，其太阳能电池板几乎永远不会处于阴影中，从而无需在航天器上携带沉重的电池或备用电源。
All of the other power sources that humanity has tapped into are just a tiny fraction of a percent," said Travis Beals, senior director and lead of Project Suncatcher. "So in some sense, this project is about tapping into the best way to use solar power to run AI compute." The satellite will be in a sun-synchronous orbit where its solar panels will almost never be in the shade. That eliminates the need for carrying heavy batteries or backup power on the spacecraft.
去年11月，一家由风险投资支持的初创公司Starcloud发射了一艘搭载英伟达H100芯片的航天器，并在太空中演示了谷歌Gemini人工智能的一个版本。埃隆·马斯克的太空探索技术公司（SpaceX）也在研发太空数据中心，并预计最早于2028年开始部署“轨道AI计算卫星”。
Last November, a venture-backed startup called Starcloud launched a spacecraft that carried an Nvidia H100 chip on board and demonstrated a version of Google's Gemini AI from space. Elon Musk's SpaceX is also working on space data centers, and has it expects to start deploying "orbital AI compute satellites" as early as 2028.
谷歌与航空航天及卫星影像公司Planet合作，设想卫星集群最终将共同运行，形成基于太空的数据中心。每颗卫星将搭载数十个TPU芯片，并通过激光与其他卫星以及地球进行通信。明年，该公司计划将另外两颗卫星送入轨道，以测试其连接能力。
Google, in partnership with the aerospace and satellite imagery company Planet, envisions clusters of satellites eventually orbiting together to form space-based data centers. Each satellite will carry dozens of TPU chips and communicate with the others — and Earth — via lasers. Next year, the company plans to put two more satellites into orbit to test their connection.
今天发射的卫星是一个原型机，比尔（Beals）称其为“一项非常基础的测试”，旨在确保芯片能够在太空中运行。一枚SpaceX火箭将其送入轨道，Planet公司将负责使其启动并运行。比尔表示，随后谷歌将启动并测试这些TPU。该任务的目标是运行一年。该原型卫星曾在模拟太空环境的热真空室中接受测试。
The satellite launched today is a prototype that Beals called "a very minimal test" to make sure the chips can run in space. A SpaceX rocket carried it into orbit, and Planet will get it up and running. Beal said Google will then fire up and test the TPUs. The goal is for the mission to be operational for a year. The prototype satellite was tested in a thermal vacuum chamber that simulates the environment in space.
卡内基梅隆大学电气与计算机工程教授布兰登·卢西亚（Brandon Lucia）表示，这个想法听起来“非常像科幻小说”，但其中许多技术已在研究层面得到验证。
Google Brandon Lucia, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, said the idea sounds "very sci-fi," but much of the technology has been proven at a research level.
尽管如此，仍面临巨大挑战。热量是其中一个重大问题。计算机芯片会产生高温，在地球上，热量可以通过风或水散发。但在太空的真空环境中，这是不可能的。
Still, there are huge challenges. Heat is a big one. Computer chips get hot, and on Earth the heat can be dissipated with wind or water. That's not possible in the vacuum of space.
卢西亚说：“特别是在卫星中，使用更多电力进行计算意味着向卫星内部封闭的环境排放更多热量。”
"In a satellite in particular, using more power to do the computations means dumping more heat into the confined environment inside of the satellite," Lucia said.
谷歌在其博客文章中称，芯片冷却是“一项关键的研究挑战”，并概述了其正在研究的一些方法，包括使用管道和散热器的组合将芯片的热量导出。
In its blog post, Google called cooling the chips "a crucial research challenge," and outlined some of the approaches it's working on, including using a combination of pipes and radiators to wick heat away from the chips.
比尔说，散热器是当前任务中最重的部件之一——这是一个缺点，因为更重的物体发射成本更高——他的团队正在研究如何更高效地冷却芯片。
Beal said the radiators are one of the heaviest components on the current mission — a drawback because heavier objects are more expensive to launch — and his team is working on ways to cool chips more efficiently.
卢西亚指出，维护方面也存在重大问题。当芯片在地面数据中心发生故障，或其他设备出现问题时，技术人员可以进入现场进行维修。但当数据中心在地球上空数百英里处运行时，维修就困难得多。
Lucia points out that there are also major questions about upkeep. When a chip malfunctions in a terrestrial data center, or something goes on the fritz, a technician can walk in and fix it. That's harder when the data center is circling hundreds of miles above Earth.
“所有这些都会使成本和复杂性放大10倍，也许是100倍。因此，必须带来巨大的回报，”卢西亚说。
"Those all have their cost and complexity amplified by a factor of 10, maybe a factor of 100. And so there has to be a big payoff," Lucia said.
此外，还存在环境方面的疑问。太空数据中心虽然会使用太阳能，但将它们送入太空的火箭使用碳基燃料。最终，它们会重新进入地球大气层，在燃烧过程中可能增加污染。
And there are environmental questions, too. While space data centers would run on solar power, the rockets that launch them run off of carbon-based fuels. And eventually they will re-enter earth's atmosphere, potentially adding pollution as they burn up.
埃隆·马斯克表示，太空是扩大数据中心规模、以满足未来人工智能需求的“唯一途径”。但其经济可行性仍是一个未知数。发射成本高昂，维修困难，而且通过激光跨越数百英里并穿过地球大气层进行通信，速度也更慢。而且，需要由许多卫星组成的星座，才能达到地面数据中心的计算能力。
Elon Musk has said that space is the "only way to scale" data centers to meet future demand for AI. But the economics are still a question mark. Launches are costly, repairs are difficult, and communication by laser across hundreds of miles and through Earth's atmosphere is slower. And it will take constellations of many satellites to equal the computing capacity of a terrestrial data center.
比尔说，他和他的小团队经常思考这些问题。“即使这在技术上可行，如果始终昂贵到无法实际使用，也没什么帮助，”他说。
Beals said he and his small team think about these questions a lot. "It doesn't help a lot if this is technically possible, if it's always going to be too expensive to be practical," he said.
他补充说，很难知道太空数据中心何时才能实现经济可行。“我看不出在未来五年内这样做会变得更便宜。我认为这需要更长时间，”他说。
He added that it is difficult to know when space-based data centers will be economically viable. "I don't see this being something where it's cheaper to do this in the next five years. I think it will take longer than that," he said.
他并不认为，太空数据中心短期内会取代地面数据中心。比尔斯说：“我认为，有些应用场景在地球上执行更合适，有些则在太空中执行更合适。从非常长远的发展来看，或许在太空中完成的任务会越来越多，直到大部分算力都在太空中运行。但我认为，在很长一段时间里，两者会并存。”他说，整个项目是一个“登月式”的宏大目标。
And he doesn't think that space data centers will replace terrestrial data centers any time soon. "I think that there are going to be use cases that make more sense to do on Earth and use cases that make more sense to do in space," Beals said. "In the really-long run, perhaps the set of things you do in space gets larger and larger until that's where most of the compute is happening. But I think for a long time you'll have both coexisting." The whole project, he said, is a "moonshot." "It's going to take a long time," he said.
“这需要很长时间，”他说，“而且过程不会一帆风顺。”谷歌是NPR的财务支持方。
"It's not going to be a completely straightforward journey." Google is a financial supporter of NPR.