Google sends four TPUs to space aboard SpaceX rocket, but why is AI heading into orbit?

Google has sent four of its custom AI chips, called TPUs, into space aboard a SpaceX rocket as part of Project Suncatcher. The experiment will test whether AI computing hardware can survive launch conditions, radiation and extreme temperatures in orbit.

Google has sent four of its Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, into space as part of an early experiment that could shape how AI computing systems are built in the future. The chips travelled aboard a prototype satellite launched on SpaceX’s Transporter-18 mission on October 1 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The satellite is part of Google’s Project Suncatcher, a research programme looking at whether large amounts of AI computing could eventually operate in orbit. Google confirmed after launch that it had established contact with the spacecraft and that the satellite was operating as expected. For now, this is a hardware experiment rather than an AI data centre floating over Earth.

I remember the first meeting where the team........

© News9Live