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Sources · 3 min · Oct 21, 2026

Orbital data centers could address future energy and space constraints

Sundar Pichai

CEO, Google and Alphabet

  • Alex HeathHost · Founder & host, Sources

    Left The Verge to start Sources in 2025; it has made over $1M since, mostly from sponsors.

About this segment

Pichai points to near-constant solar access in sun-synchronous orbits and Earth's limits on space for future compute. He frames Suncatcher as a long-term moonshot that can also drive useful R&D.

From “Sundar Pichai on Gemini 4 and the AI compute crunch”, Oct 21, 2026. Watch the full episode

“being in sun-synchronous orbits, getting access to 24-7 energy kind of, you know, it's a pretty good reason.”
Sundar Pichaiat 45:24 · Sources45:24

Takeaways

  1. Sun-synchronous orbits could provide access to energy around the clock.
  2. Pichai says future compute needs are difficult to extrapolate.
  3. Moonshot projects can advance technology beyond their original goal.
Watch 3:22 from 43:47

In this episode

Full episode
  1. 22:47Google justifies AI spending with demand and capability signals6:53
  2. 8:30Pichai expects a productivity leap from AI agents in 20274:18
  3. 47:26Waymo is scaling through partnerships and broader deployments3:03
  4. 1:44Google pairs model access limits with runtime safeguards3:51
  5. 15:32DeepMind's frontier work has become an all-consuming operation4:22
  6. 35:30Google wants Gemini to combine chat, tasks and scheduled work3:08
  7. 38:31Pichai sees protocols as a more scalable path for agents5:23

  8. 43:47Orbital data centers could address future energy and space constraints3:22

Up next · FoundersGreat decisions come from knowing what to give up3:17

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 43:52

    You guys are also starting to send data centers to space. You've got Project Suncatcher. I'm your first pilot with Planet Labs and SpaceX. How's it been going? I mean, it went up. Is it still there? Is it burned up? What's been the early feedback? It's been doing great. It's still there. It's doing well. And we are, I think we'll get a chance to say hello to the TPUs, which I'm really excited by. I had a chance to watch the launch here while it was happening.

  2. 44:28

    Look, I think when we take these projects, to me, it's no different from starting Waymo. I still recall flying to the desert to watch the Stanley car race as part of the DARPA challenge. And at that time, if you had tried to envision where Waymo would be today, it would seem like you're talking about something futuristic, sci-fi thing, right? But, you know, 10 to 20 years is a long time, particularly with the inflection points we are in.

  3. 45:00

    So I think we are taking the early steps, but we are deeply committed to the journey. And the team is a world-class team. And, you know, in a 10 to 20-year time frame, they're going to have amazing milestones. So that's what I'm excited about. What about, like, the desert, the ocean, all these places on planet Earth where we could put them now? I mean, why invest in space right now? If you think through from a first principle standpoint of energy availability, you know, being in sun-synchronous orbits, getting access to 24-7 energy kind of, you know, it's a pretty good reason.

  4. 45:37

    There'll be more reasons, you know, I think. We love so many opportunities to use the physical space, the constrained physical space on planet Earth. The data centers today look big to us, but they are not. It's just arbitrarily big to how they were like 10 years ago. So it is tough for us to exponentially extrapolate our compute needs 20 years out. And so I don't think Earth would look nice if that's how you plan to do it.

  5. 46:11

    It's a good point. Yeah. And we would have other constraints here and so on. But also, by thinking about these technologies, it's like in the 60s, going to the moon, going to space. You're pushing so many aspects of the technology curve. That's how you drive R&D. That's how you drive the future. So there will be, you know, it's the fundamental thing about a moonshot you realize is when you focus on something very ambitious, is, you invent so many things along the way, all of which end up being helpful.

  6. 46:47

    Which you found with Waymo and... Waymo, our TPUs. And, you know, because we were trying to build AI so early and the compute wasn't there, it's what led us to build TPUs. Right. Right. And so, and I think, so thinking about a technology curve early in pushing, I think definitely gives you those opportunities. And you said the word moonshot a couple of times.