After the mid-term elections in the United States, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk found a particularly attractive address for data centers - space. On Earth, the neighbors have learned to spoil the industrial plans. In a selection of 41 local votes cited by Reuters on November 6, 40 results limited the development of computer systems. The Democrats won control of both houses of the future Congress. The AI industry faces threats to both local approvals and federal sponsorship.
Americans oppose a very material neighborhood. In a Gallup poll in March, 71% opposed an artificial intelligence center in their region. The electricity supply and server cooling are competing for resources used by residents. Bloomberg recorded an increase in the wholesale prices of up to 267% in the wake of a single network. Senator Ron Weden, who asked water data companies, provided a top 5 million gallons per day for a large center. The closed noise and character of the decisions add to the dissatisfaction of people who promise them a technological future beyond the fence.
Orbit promises to remove the domestic enemy from this deal. Starcloud offers investors direct development without the restrictions of national permits. The company sent the Nvidia H100 into space in November 2025, and by August 2026 it had raised a total of $450 million. Among the investors -. Cisco, whose expertise is needed to connect computers. The stated goal of Starcloud is 88 thousand satellites with a power of 20 GW. Such a large application makes the launch of the chip the start of a separate industrial program.
At continuous load, 20 GW requires 175.2 billion kWh per year. Almost as much as the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimate, all data centers in the US will consume in 2023 - 176 billion. The comparison refers to energy, not computing speed. Starcloud will need to place an industrial-scale power supply behind the atmosphere. The funds raised have not yet turned into a working network.
Google's hands-on experience is still much more modest, but we're looking into it.