In short
Meta signed a deal for as much as 1 GW of space-based photo voltaic power.
The corporate says the facility shall be used on Earth, not in orbital knowledge facilities.
Meta can be backing long-duration storage because it faces hovering AI power calls for.
Meta is seeking to area for extra energy as synthetic intelligence drives demand for electrical energy.
In a publish on Monday, the Fb and Instagram dad or mum firm introduced that it signed an settlement with Virginia-based startup Overview Vitality to safe as much as 1 gigawatt of electrical energy from a deliberate space-based solar energy system for its knowledge facilities by the tip of the last decade.
Meta mentioned its partnership with Overview Vitality is supposed to generate energy in area and beam it to Earth, as a substitute of trying to place bodily knowledge facilities in orbit as beforehand instructed by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The deal displays rising stress on tech firms to seek out dependable energy as AI drives a surge in electricity-hungry knowledge facilities and strains the U.S. grid.
“We’re all the time taking a look at new and modern methods to offer dependable power to our knowledge facilities and add new era to the grid,” a Meta spokesperson instructed Decrypt. “Area-based photo voltaic is early-stage however it’s promising and it might ship steady, carbon-free energy and direct it the place it’s wanted in actual time.”
The announcement comes days after SpaceX warned in a pre-IPO submitting that orbital AI computing “might not obtain industrial viability,” regardless of Musk publicly calling space-based AI “a no brainer.”
Overview Vitality plans to gather fixed daylight from geosynchronous orbit and beam it to photo voltaic services on Earth to generate electrical energy across the clock, after efficiently demonstrating the core know-how final 12 months by transmitting energy from a shifting airplane to a floor receiver.
“Our deal is structured round milestones: We’ve preferential entry to as much as 1GW of future capability as soon as these know-how milestones are met,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Meta additionally introduced a cope with Midday Vitality for greater than 100 hours of power storage. The businesses plan an preliminary 25-megawatt, 2.5-gigawatt-hour pilot mission in 2028 earlier than scaling towards the complete 1 GW/100 GWh goal.
Meta mentioned it has backed greater than 30 gigawatts of latest power throughout 28 states, together with wind, photo voltaic, nuclear, and geothermal tasks.
Area-based photo voltaic has been proposed as a solution to keep away from among the limitations of terrestrial photo voltaic, comparable to climate, atmospheric losses, and nighttime downtime. Nonetheless, the idea stays unproven at a industrial scale, with questions round launch prices, upkeep, and economics.
“This partnership with Overview Vitality is about backing a know-how that would ship dependable energy from orbit and enhance the output of photo voltaic services on Earth,” Meta’s spokesperson mentioned. “We’re giving it the mission certainty it must develop.”
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