Meta Turns to Space-Based Solar Energy to Power AI Data Centers on Earth

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In brief - Meta signed a deal for up to 1 GW of space-based solar energy. - The company says the power will be used on Earth, not in orbital data centers. - Meta is also backing long-duration storage as it faces soaring AI energy demands. Meta is looking to space for more power as artificial intelligence drives demand for electricity. In a post on Monday, the Facebook and Instagram parent company announced that it signed an agreement with Virginia-based startup Overview Energy to secure up to 1 gigawatt of electricity from a planned space-based solar power system for its data centers by the end of the decade. Meta said its partnership with Overview Energy is meant to generate power in space and beam it to Earth, instead of attempting to put physical data centers in orbit as previously suggested by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The deal reflects growing pressure on tech companies to find reliable power as AI drives a surge in electricity-hungry data centers and strains the U.S. grid. “We’re always looking at new and innovative ways to provide reliable energy to our data centers and add new generation to the grid,” a Meta spokesperson told Decrypt. “Space-based solar is early-stage but it’s promising and it can deliver continuous, carbon-free power and direct it where it’s needed in real time.” The announcement comes days after SpaceX warned in a pre-IPO filing that orbital AI computing “may not achieve commercial viability,” despite Musk publicly calling space-based AI “a no-brainer.” Overview Energy plans to collect constant sunlight from geosynchronous orbit and beam it to solar facilities on Earth to generate electricity around the clock, after successfully demonstrating the core technology last year by transmitting power from a moving plane to a ground receiver. “Our deal is structured around milestones: We have preferential access to up to 1GW of future capacity once those technology milestones are met,” the spokesperson said. Meta also announced a deal with Noon Energy for more than 100 hours of energy storage. The companies plan an initial 25-megawatt, 2.5-gigawatt-hour pilot project in 2028 before scaling toward the full 1 GW/100 GWh target. Meta said it has backed more than 30 gigawatts of new energy across 28 states, including wind, solar, nuclear, and geothermal projects. Space-based solar has been proposed as a way to avoid some of the limitations of terrestrial solar, such as weather, atmospheric losses, and nighttime downtime. Still, the concept remains unproven at a commercial scale, with questions around launch costs, maintenance, and economics. “This partnership with Overview Energy is about backing a technology that could deliver reliable power from orbit and boost the output of solar facilities on Earth,” Meta’s spokesperson said. “We're giving it the project certainty it needs to develop.”

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