Google's first data center satellite is online, running Gemma 4 on a TPU in orbit

Google's Project Suncatcher prototype space data center is online and communicating with the ground after launching Oct. 1 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare alongside more than 100 other spacecraft. After about three weeks of commissioning, engineers sent the first prompt this week to Google DeepMind's Gemma 4 model running on the satellite, which wrote a haiku about being in space. The satellite carries four TPUs and generates up to 1 kW, enough to run only one chip at a time for about 20 minutes. Tests now turn to how the TPUs hold up under thermal stress and space radiation; if they do, Google plans two interconnected satellites with optical links in 2027.