Starcloud secures $250 million to build orbital data centers with ai-powered satellites

American startup Starcloud has raised $250 million in Series A funding, bringing its valuation to $23 billion. The round, led by Manhattan West, includes participation from NVIDIA, Cisco, Benchmark, and EQT. The funds will support the development of satellites equipped with high-performance GPUs to provide computing power for artificial intelligence. Starcloud aims to move data centers into space, following the successful deployment of its Starcloud-1 satellite in November 2023, which carried NVIDIA’s H100 chip and demonstrated the feasibility of running AI models in orbit. The company has already trained AI models and executed AI inference and fine-tuning tasks on the satellite, while collaborating with NVIDIA to develop the Space-1 Vera Rubin module tailored for space environments. Unlike terrestrial data centers, space-based systems must manage heat dissipation without traditional air cooling and account for radiation exposure. Starcloud plans to build a constellation of 88,000 satellites, offering 20 gigawatts of orbital computing power, positioning space data centers as a key solution for the post-AI era.