Space-Based Data Centers: A Special Seminar by David Sandalow, Roger Aines and Julio Friedmann
This event is open to Stanford faculty, current students and staff only. A light lunch will be provided. Space is limited. RSVP is required to attend.
Will a million data centers orbit Earth?
Driven by rising demand for AI compute, challenges in citing data centers on Earth, and declining launch costs, SpaceX, Blue Origin, StarCloud, and Cowboy Space have proposals pending at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to put more than a million data centers in space. Driven by rising demand for AI compute, challenges in citing data centers on Earth, and declining launch costs, SpaceX, Blue Origin, StarCloud, and Cowboy Space have proposals pending at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to put more than a million data centers in space. In addition, Chinese companies have announced ambitious deployment plans, and activities related to space-based data centers are underway in many other countries as well.
Are constellations of space-based data centers technically feasible? What are the implications for night skies and astronomy? For congestion of low Earth orbit and casualties on Earth from space debris? For stratospheric ozone depletion and global warming?
Join three authors of Innovation for Cool Earth Forum’s space-based data centers roadmap, which will be released on October 20th, for a presentation of their findings and a discussion.
David Sandalow is the inaugural fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and host of the AI, Energy and Climate Podcast. Sandalow chaired the ICEF’s space-based data center roadmap project as well as ICEF’s “Sustainable Data Centers Roadmap” (2025). He has held senior positions at the White House, U.S. Department State, and U.S. Department of Energy.
Roger Aines is former energy program chief scientist and distinguished member of the technical staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Aines co-authored the ICEF roadmap on sustainable data centers with Sandalow and Julio Friedman, among others, as well as the new one on space-based data centers.
Julio Friedmann is chief scientist at Relae (formerly Carbon Direct). An expert on carbon management, clean manufacturing, and low-carbon energy, Friedman has worked in the Obama administration’s Department of Energy, at Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy, and at Lawrence Livermore National Lab as chief energy technologist.