A Race That Escalated Fast

Eight separate organizations filed plans, launched hardware, or committed funding to build orbital data centers within just the last 90 days. This is no longer a speculative concept discussed at tech conferences. Google confirmed this week it is moving forward with its own orbital compute program. SpaceX and xAI have filed for up to one million satellites. Jeff Bezos has described gigawatt-scale facilities in orbit within a decade or two. Elon Musk, Eric Schmidt, and Sam Altman have all weighed in publicly. This article examines exactly what is being built, why, and whether the underlying economics actually make sense yet.