SAN FRANCISCO - In a move that proves space is indeed the final frontier for absolutely everything, Sophia Space announced July 30 that it has been awarded a patent, shared with the California Institute of Technology, for large, modular space-based data centers. Because if you're going to compute, you might as well do it in the vacuum of space, where the only thing colder than your cloud storage is the cosmic microwave background.

The patent, issued July 14, covers the architecture for a modular, scalable, passively cooled computing and data storage unit designed for assembly into large computing data centers powered by solar energy. “It is one way of solving the problem of energy in space, meaning energy in and heat out,” said Leon Alkalai, Sophia founder and retired NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory technical fellow. “It’s not the only way.” But it's a way, and that's what matters in the patent game.

The Space-Based Data Centers patent has its roots in Caltech’s Space-based Solar Power Project (SSPP), an internal research and development campaign to collect solar energy in space and transmit it to Earth. Based on that work, Alkalai and colleagues at Caltech and JPL began exploring the idea of using similar large deployable structures to gather energy for computing in space. Then, only the data would need to be transmitted to Earth. Because why beam down electricity when you can beam down memes?

The seven inventors named in the patent are: Alkalai; JPL engineering fellow John R. Brophy; Caltech Professor Sergio Pellegrino; Jonathan Sauder, former JPL technology infusion group lead; JPL technology consultant Timothy P. McElrath; Douglas J. Sheldon, former JPL mission-assurance manager; and Don J. Hunter of JPL’s advanced electronic packaging engineering section. That's a lot of brains to figure out how to keep servers cool in space.

The patent illustrates “how JPL, Caltech and private industry can work together to rapidly develop solutions to difficult technical problems for the benefit of the nation,” Brophy said in a statement. Because nothing says 'benefit of the nation' like orbiting data centers.

To explore commercial applications for the technology, Alkalai founded Sophia Space in 2023 as a portfolio company of Pasadena, California-based Mandala Space Ventures. After raising $22 million, Sophia Space plans to launch its Thermal Integrated LEO Edge (TILE) compute module in 2027 in an Apex Nova bus. “The next thing for us is to demonstrate this TILE technology in space,” Alkalai said. “We’re also raising capital for our next round of financing.” Because space data centers don't come cheap, and neither do launches.

At the same time, Sophia Space is working with Pellegrino to continue development of thermal and structural technologies for orbiting data center architecture. “Caltech will research and develop light-weight, large-scale deployable structures and thermal management techniques applicable to future Sophia Space orbiting data centers,” according to the news release. So in a few years, your cloud storage might literally be in the clouds.