From Concept to Constellation: Google Launches Orbital AI Prototype as SpaceX Plans Million-Satellite Compute Cloud

Google has launched the first functional prototype of an orbital AI data center, marking a critical milestone as SpaceX simultaneously reveals plans for a million-satellite AI compute constellation. On October 1, 2026, Google deployed its Project Suncatcher prototype satellite carrying custom AI chips (TPUs) aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from California. Just five days later, SpaceX unveiled concrete technical specifications for Starmind, its vision for up to 1 million AI compute satellites designed to power distributed machine learning workloads directly from space.