WASHINGTON - In a move that sounds like the plot of a Bond villain's energy plan but is actually just another Tuesday for Big Tech, startup Overview Energy has signed a deal to beam solar power from space to Meta's data centers. The companies announced April 27 that Overview will transmit up to one gigawatt of power to Meta facilities when terrestrial sources like, you know, the sun taking a break, are unavailable.

Overview emerged from stealth last December, proudly showing off its tech that collects solar power in space and zaps it to Earth via infrared lasers. Those lasers will target existing terrestrial solar farms, letting them generate power even when the sun isn't cooperating - like at night, when most people expect darkness. The company plans an in-space demo in 2028, with commercial service as soon as 2030.

“Space solar technology represents a transformative step forward by leveraging existing terrestrial infrastructure to deliver new, uninterrupted energy from orbit,” said Nat Sahlstrom, vice president of energy and sustainability at Meta, in a statement that could double as a tech buzzword bingo card.

Meta is scrambling to find power for its AI data centers, which apparently have an insatiable appetite for electricity. The company has already signed deals for geothermal and nuclear power, and on the same day announced a separate agreement to buy 100 gigawatt-hours of energy storage from battery startup Noon Energy. Because why not hedge your bets across every possible energy source except maybe a hamster wheel?

This frenzy for power has led some companies to consider the ultimate extreme: moving data centers to space. Several firms have filed applications with the Federal Communications Commission to deploy massive satellite constellations as orbital data centers, tapping into solar power that's always on - if you ignore the occasional eclipse.

SpaceX filed in January for permission to launch up to 1 million satellites, claiming they'd achieve "transformative cost and energy efficiency" while reducing environmental impact. Blue Origin followed in March with plans for 51,600 orbital data center satellites, citing "always-on solar energy." Starcloud, a startup dedicated to orbital data centers, raised $170 million on March 30, shortly after filing an FCC application for up to 88,000 satellites.

Overview Energy, however, thinks putting data centers in space is just silly. "Put the thing that doesn’t need the maintenance and can last for a long time in space," CEO Marc Berte said in a December interview. "Put the energy part into space as opposed to putting the processing part in space." In other words, send the lasers, not the servers.

Even some observers agree. "This approach makes more sense to me: beaming the power to existing solar facilities on the ground, so they can generate electricity even after the sun goes down," said Micah Walter-Range, president of consulting firm Caelus Partners, to SpaceNews. Data center operators could be key anchor customers for space solar power companies like Overview. "Seems easier than putting the data centers in space." Indeed, because fixing a server in orbit is a lot harder than fixing a laser on the ground - though both sound like a pain.