Google’s Suncatcher Prototype Runs AI in Orbit and Sends Its First Response to Earth

Google says its Project Suncatcher satellite booted up its TPUs and ran an on-board Gemma 4 model, which responded to a prompt with a haiku about being in space. The test is part of an experimental initiative that could eventually put AI data centers in space. Google says it will next test how TPUs perform under thermal stress and radiation exposure in orbit.

Project Suncatcher has received its first complete response from its prototype satellite, a haiku. Sundar Pichai says the satellite launched a few weeks ago, and the team has now successfully sent a command to orbit, booted up the TPU, run the prompt, and received the response back on Earth.

Google Suncatcher’s prototype space data center is online and communicating with Earth, running Google DeepMind’s Gemma 4 on a single TPU to write poetry and report orbital conditions. The satellite generates up to 1 kW, but its TPU can operate for only about twenty minutes at a time. Tests will examine thermal stress and radiation effects; successful results would support launching two more satellites in 2027 to demonstrate higher power generation and inter-satellite optical links.