The company said the moonshot project seeks to explore whether an interconnected network of solar-powered satellites, equipped with Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) AI chips, could harness sunlight to run large-scale compute systems in orbit.

In a post on X, Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote: "Inspired by our history of moonshots, from quantum computing to autonomous driving, Project Suncatcher is exploring how we could one day build scalable ML compute systems in space, harnessing more of the Sun’s power (which emits more power than 100 trillion times humanity’s total electricity production)."

Pichai said early tests showed the company’s Trillium-generation TPUs survived radiation levels equivalent to low-Earth orbit when evaluated in a particle accelerator. However, he noted several challenges ahead, including thermal management and reliable system operation in orbit.

Google said it plans to partner with Planet Labs to launch two prototype satellites by early 2027.

The company will test hardware performance in orbit as part of efforts to lay the foundation for “a future era of massively scaled computation in space,” Pichai said.