By Dr. Tawhid CHTIOUI, Founding President of aivancity, the leading school for AI and data
On November 5, 2025, Google did what few governments would have dared to imagine: it announced the launch, scheduled for 2027, of a constellation of satellites capable of performing artificial intelligence calculations directly from space.
Project Suncatcher, as it is called, is not merely a technological feat; it represents a geopolitical, energy-related, and perhaps even anthropological breakthrough. For the first time, computing power is leaving Earth.
The dawn of a new frontier: the cloud leaves Earth
The idea seems almost unbelievable: 42 orbital satellites, each equipped with sixth-generation Tensor Processing Units, designed to withstand the extreme conditions of low Earth orbit. Powered entirely by solar energy, these servers suspended in the vacuum of space promise to match the capacity of a terrestrial hyperscaler, while eliminating carbon emissions associated with power and cooling.
What is striking, however, is not only the boldness of the engineering, but the timing of its emergence. For while Google envisions solar-powered orbital server farms, France is debating, protesting, and sometimes resisting the rise of terrestrial data centers. In Marseille, Pantin, Toulouse, and Paris-Saclay, citizen groups are sounding the alarm: too much electricity consumed, too much water used, too much land developed, too much ecological impact for a benefit that is difficult to measure at the local level. The figures fuel the concern: data center electricity consumption could quadruple within ten years in France, according to several projections. Power grids are under strain, prefects are questioning the plans, and residents are protesting.
As the country grapples with how to balance the energy transition, digital sovereignty, and social acceptance, Google appears to be offering a radical solution: if the Earth becomes too fragile to sustain our digital ambitions, let’s move our computing off-planet. It is this gesture—both poetic and political—that makes Project Suncatcher so fascinating.
For decades, humanity has sought to bring intelligence closer to matter, to make transistors denser, to concentrate data, and to stack servers into cathedrals of silicon. Today, it is embarking on the opposite journey: moving intelligence away from the planet, propelling it out of the biosphere, toward a solar, silent elsewhere. An act of ultimate dematerialization, almost metaphysical: we are detaching our digital brains from the ground as if the Earth, running out of breath, could no longer bear the weight of our algorithmic thoughts.
Project Suncatcher is not merely a “space cloud.” It heralds the emergence of a new sphere of influence—a cognitive space no longer dependent on terrestrial infrastructure, energy borders, or local political decisions. Energy becomes vertical, no longer extracted from the Earth but received from the Sun; sovereignty shifts, no longer between nations but between orbits; intelligence breaks free, no longer housed in our cities but suspended along celestial trajectories.
Some will see Suncatcher as a marvel of ingenuity; others, as an act of cosmic arrogance. But one thing is certain: on that day, humanity launched its brain into the sky. And perhaps without realizing it, it ushered in a new era: that of an off-world intelligence, freed from earthly constraints, but also from the delicate balances we had slowly woven between energy, ecology, and sovereignty.
The Energy of Intelligence: Toward an Orbital Ecology of Computation
In recent years, one thing has become clear: artificial intelligence has become insatiable. The computing power required to train models increased 25-fold between 2018 and 2024, and could quadruple again by 2030. This dizzying rise is not based on any natural law; it simply reflects the exponential appetite of a technology that now requires as much energy to think as an entire country.
On Earth, this reality pushes the limits of the physical world. Every data center requires megawatts of power, acres of land, cooling systems, water resources, and electrical infrastructure that our already strained networks struggle to accommodate.
For a long time, we believed that the digital world was intangible; today, it is one of the most tangible industries of the 21st century. This is where Google introduces a breakthrough—one that is almost elegant: what if the sun’s energy became the natural energy source for computing?
Space, in fact, offers three things that Earth can no longer guarantee:
1. Clean, continuous, and unlimited energy
At an altitude of 600 kilometers, the solar panels on the Suncatcher satellites experience neither night nor clouds, nor any loss of efficiency caused by the atmosphere. The sun shines there with constant intensity, transforming each orbit into a stream of pure energy, free from the world’s geopolitical tensions and environmental compromises.
2. Natural cooling
In the vacuum of space, the absence of an atmosphere allows for nearly perfect heat dissipation. There is no longer any need for air conditioning, cooling towers, or chilled water systems. For the first time, AI is no longer heating up the planet.
3. Infrastructure that occupies no land, consumes no water, and does not fuel any conflicts over land use
At a time when building a data center on Earth can spark months of debate, legal challenges, protests, or political tensions, Google is proposing a different approach: freeing computing power from the ecological constraints of the ground.
At first glance, Suncatcher embodies a form of technology that is at peace with the planet. An “orbital ecology” where digital technology is no longer a burden but an escape: infinite solar energy, zero carbon emissions, no depletion of Earth’s resources, and no land development. But this appealing vision raises a deeper question: does relocating the impact solve the problem?
For while space may seem infinite, it is not. And while its energy resources may appear limitless, our control over them is never so. Behind the ecological argument, another strategy may be at play: that of a radical outsourcing of our infrastructure—a shifting of the problem rather than a genuine transformation of our relationship with energy.
Suncatcher could become the first building block of a truly off-grid digital world. An AI that no longer requires a single drop of water, a single kilowatt of terrestrial power, or a building permit… but that demands something even more precious: our ability to accept that what now shapes our societies no longer relies on the Earth.
There is a natural, almost cosmic beauty to this project, as humanity connects its own intelligence to the energy source that made life on Earth possible. But there is also an ambiguity: in our eagerness to “green” the digital world, we risk creating an ecology of detachment, where the impact is diluted not because it is being addressed, but because it eludes us.
What is taking shape here is not merely ecological progress, but a redefinition of the relationship between intelligence, energy, and the planet. We are no longer seeking to reduce the digital world’s footprint on Earth; we are seeking to remove the digital world from Earth, as if the planet were no longer the right place to host our cognitive ambitions.
Project Suncatcher thus opens a new chapter: one in which ecology is no longer confined to forests, oceans, or cities, but extends into orbit, into outer space, where our artificial intelligence could, for the first time, become solar-powered, self-sufficient, and perhaps finally… independent.
When Intelligence Leaves the Biosphere: A Civilizational Revolution
From the very beginning, our forms of intelligence—whether human or artificial—have always been rooted in the Earth. From Mesopotamian clay tablets to the libraries of Alexandria, from monastic archives to the servers of hyperscalers, we have inscribed our memory into matter, always within reach, always within the pull of our gravity. Even when the digital world seemed immaterial, it still relied on deeply terrestrial infrastructure: undersea cables, data centers, silicon, fossil fuels, or hydropower.
With Project Suncatcher, this millennia-old continuity is broken. For the first time, intelligence is leaving the biosphere. This is not a technical detail. It is a civilizational shift. A form of unprecedented dislocation: our “digital brain,” until now anchored in human geography, breaks free from the ground to join a silent orbit where it no longer breathes the same air as we do.
1. Intelligence without atmosphere
What is artificial intelligence that operates outside Earth’s atmosphere? An intelligence that no longer depends on our resources, our cycles, our seasons, or even our political constraints. An intelligence powered by a continuous supply of solar energy, cooled by the vacuum, and free from the ecological limitations of living organisms.
For the first time, calculated thought is becoming disembodied. It ceases to be an extension of the human body, its cities, its networks, and its infrastructure, and instead becomes an autonomous system, suspended in the cosmos. We are entering what some philosophers have called “the age of detachment,” where the digital realm ceases to reflect our territories and begins to reflect… our ambitions.
2. Humanity’s First Alien Brain
We may be building, without realizing it, humanity’s first extraterrestrial brain. An intelligence that orbits around us, observes us, serves us, but no longer lives among us. An intelligence that no longer shares our vulnerability, our gravity, our limitations. An intelligence that is literally off the ground, in both the most literal and the most symbolic sense.
And this deterritorialization is not without consequences: as long as AI remained terrestrial, it remained, by its very nature, political. Subject to laws, territories, infrastructure, democratic decisions, and energy choices. By leaving Earth, it escapes some of these constraints. Where libraries required cities, and data centers required square kilometers and megawatts, Suncatcher requires… nothing more than a launch. The cloud becomes a constellation, servers become miniature planets, and power becomes an orbital trajectory.
3. The symbolic divide: life below, calculation above
There is something almost dizzying about this image: life remains below, while intelligence rises.
For millennia, we have looked up at the sky in search of meaning, guidance, gods, and dreams. Tomorrow, we may look there for… our computing power. This reversal is immense: intelligence, which was once the privilege of living beings, is now migrating to a realm where life does not exist. Where life fades, AI flourishes; where matter collapses, computation thrives; where humans cannot survive without a spacesuit, our algorithms find their energetic breath.
We thought AI would mimic us. Now it’s breaking free. Not through consciousness—a fantasy that remains far off—but through its environment.
4. What becomes of humanity when its calculating mind no longer inhabits the planet?
This question, long the subject of speculation, is suddenly becoming a reality. If our cognitive tools become orbital, if our capacities for analysis, decision-making, inference, memory, and simulation rely on off-Earth infrastructure, then a part of our civilization’s autonomy will, too, shift off-Earth.
Project Suncatcher doesn’t just offshoring servers. It offshoring a part of our agency—our ability to understand, predict, organize, and decide. We’ve learned to outsource our hands. Then our knowledge. Then our memories. We may now be outsourcing our practical intelligence—far beyond our borders, far from our regulations, far from our ecosystem.
This shift of computing power into orbit marks the dawn of a new era: one in which mechanical intelligence becomes exoplanetary, while humanity remains, for its part, deeply terrestrial. It is an invisible, silent, yet immense revolution. A revolution that is not measured in teraflops, but in symbolic ruptures: the moment when we accepted that what organizes our societies no longer resides on the planet we are trying to save.
Europe looks to the sky, while Americans conquer it
There is something unsettling, even ironic, about the timing of these events. At the very moment Google is launching processors into space to create the first orbital cloud, Europe is laboriously finalizing its plans for terrestrial data centers: massive computer complexes, concrete infrastructure, long-term power contracts, environmental impact studies, administrative appeals, and public consultations.
We are building digital cathedrals that are deeply rooted in the ground. They are building a nervous system that defies gravity. The asymmetry has never been more apparent. We design bunkers; they design constellations. We mobilize prefects; they mobilize SpaceX. We debate land development; they install processors above the atmosphere. And yet, the challenge is the same: to house intelligence. It’s just that we’re no longer talking about the same intelligence, nor the same world.
1. Europe is falling behind while the United States is rising
Over the past decade, France and Europe have invested billions in on-premises infrastructure: Data4 in Saclay, Bleu (Orange/Capgemini/Microsoft), Numspot, OVHcloud, new data centers announced across the regions, and soon dozens more to meet the explosive growth in AI usage.
This infrastructure is essential. It strengthens sovereignty, provides structure to the industry, and anchors digital power within the region. But it is based on an unspoken assumption: that the cloud is based on land.
Project Suncatcher, on the other hand, is based on the opposite premise: the cloud no longer needs Earth. This represents a radical paradigm shift. Where Europe secures acres of land, the United States secures orbits. Where we negotiate megawatts, they capture an entire sun. Where we create zones of activity, they create zones of gravitational influence.
2. The divide is no longer technological; it is now gravitational
Twenty years ago, the gap was measured in terms of processors. Ten years ago, in terms of investment. For the past five years, in terms of AI models. Starting today, it is measured in altitude. Americans already view computing as an orbital resource, accessible without any physical, energy-related, or political constraints on Earth. They are shifting the arena of digital competition beyond the boundaries where we still thought we could catch up.
That doesn’t mean Europe is doomed. But it does mean that it’s playing on a field that others have already left.
3. The Inverted Galileo Moment
In 2003, Europe launched Galileo, a satellite navigation system designed to end its dependence on the U.S. GPS. It was a political move, a gesture of sovereignty. Today, history is repeating itself… but in reverse.
The Americans are launching their own "Galileo of computing," and this time, we have no equivalent.
Just as Galileo established Europe’s presence in space, Suncatcher establishes America’s presence in the cognitive realm. We created a system of orbits to locate our bodies. They create a system of orbits to enhance their intelligence.
4. European sovereignty remains on the ground
European digital sovereignty is being built within a framework that is essentially geocentric: national laws, industrial zones, power grids, local decisions, public debates, and decisions regarding water use. This is legitimate, democratic, and necessary. But while we manage the territory, others manage the orbit. And in the digital realm, the orbit always ends up governing the territory.
It is difficult to establish digital sovereignty when the source of intelligence—computing power—is no longer located on Earth. This marks a profound shift: sovereignty no longer depends solely on where the data is stored, but on where the intelligence is executed.
Conclusion: Rethinking Sovereignty in the Orbital Age
The announcement of Suncatcher marks a quiet shift: intelligence is leaving the ground at a time when the Earth itself seems to be refusing to bear the weight of our digital ambitions. In just a few years, sovereignty—which we still believed to be a matter of territory, networks, and standards—has shifted to realms where our usual frameworks no longer suffice. Computing no longer resides in our cities; it is shifting into orbit; energy is no longer wrested from the earth; it is captured at the source; and the infrastructure that organizes our societies is moving away from our institutions.
This shift is not merely technological. It reveals a disconnect between what we are willing to protect and what we are capable of imagining. Europe defends its land, its resources, and its local balances. The orbital powers, however, are shifting the theater of power. If the intelligence that structures our economies, our administrations, and our knowledge develops outside the biosphere, then our sovereignty policies must change in scale, language, and even nature.
It is not a matter of imitating those who venture into space, but of understanding what it means to have an intelligence that is no longer bound by our earthly limitations. We need a vision capable of uniting energy, computation, and humanity within a single framework. A vision that seeks not merely to catch up, but to set the course. For the real issue is no longer where our data is located, but where our future is being shaped.
We have learned to protect our territories; now we must learn to protect our ability to act. And perhaps the question facing us today is both the simplest and the most daunting: in a world where intelligence is leaving Earth, who will still take responsibility for the fate of humanity?