Orbital raises $5M to build space data centers for AI inference
Former Spin founder Euwyn Poon bets on Starship to make space compute viable
Deep Dive
Orbital, founded by ex-Spin CEO Euwyn Poon, raised a $5M seed round from a16z's Speedrun accelerator to build space data centers for AI inference. The company plans a demo flight with an Nvidia Blackwell chip on a partner's satellite and hopes to launch its first data-processing spacecraft in 2028 using Nvidia's Space-1 GPUs. Its long-term goal is to deploy 10,000 satellites providing a distributed gigawatt of computing power, each offering 100 kW—but the timeline depends on SpaceX's Starship becoming commercially available.
Key Points
- Orbital raised $5M seed from a16z Speedrun, Basis Set, and others to build space data centers for AI inference
- Demo flight with Nvidia Blackwell chip planned; first data-processing satellite with Vera Rubin GPUs set for 2028
- Goal to deploy 10,000 satellites providing 1 GW of compute (100 kW per satellite), dependent on SpaceX Starship
Why It Matters
Space-based AI compute could unlock unlimited solar power and bypass terrestrial constraints, but hinges on Starship economics.