A Beijing-based space startup, Orbital Chenguang, has secured early-stage funding and a staggering 57.7 billion yuan ($8.4 billion) in strategic credit lines from 12 major financial institutions, including the Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China. This move is part of a broader, state-backed Chinese push to develop space-based computing infrastructure, because apparently, building data centers on land is just so 2023.
The company, incubated by the Beijing Astro-future Institute of Space Technology, is planning a constellation in a dawn-dusk orbit 700-800 kilometers above Earth, aiming for a gigawatt-scale space data center by 2035. Chief scientist Zhang Shancong cited the classic earthly nuisances of heavy land use, soaring energy consumption, and limits on atmospheric cooling as reasons to move the whole operation into the vacuum of space, where the only neighbors are cosmic rays.
The initial phase from 2025-2027 will focus on core tech challenges, followed by integrating Earth-based data processing with space-based computing power between 2028-2030. An experimental satellite, Chenguang-1, was slated for launch but appears to have been delayed, possibly lost among other undisclosed satellites on the ill-fated Ceres-2 and Tianlong-3 debut flights this year.
This effort aligns with China's main space contractor CASC's own plans for a gigawatt-scale orbital infrastructure and a broader government emphasis on commercial space. The scale suggests a constellation numbering in the thousands, fitting neatly into China's ambitious filings with the International Telecommunication Union for two constellations covering 96,714 satellites each, because securing orbital real estate is the new frontier in suburban sprawl.
Orbital Chenguang is not alone in this cosmic quest. Other Chinese efforts include ADA Space's Three-Body constellation, Shanghai Bailing Aerospace Technology's planned demonstration satellite, and Zhongke Tiansuan's Aurora 1000 computing tech already in orbit. It seems everyone wants a piece of the final frontier, hoping to solve the minor physics and economics problems of thermal management, data transmission, and the cost of launching everything into space.