[ExI] Power satellites are being developed now

[Adrian Tymes]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 3:35 PM John Clark via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 8:44 AM BillK via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> >Electricity from orbit? 7 space laser projects that aim to beam power to Earth.
>> From lasers to microwaves, these satellites aren’t just watching Earth – they’re trying to power it.
>> By Atharva Gosavi  Dec 18, 2025
>>
>> <https://interestingengineering.com/space/space-laser-to-beam-electricity-to-earth>
>
> Over long distances it's much easier to transmit data than power, so if space-based power transmission to earth is economically viable (is it?) then it would make even more sense to have power satellites use their energy to run data centers that are also in space. After all, these days running data centers is the economic sector where energy usage is growing the fastest, so why not build them where energy is the cheapest?

Among other reasons: AI hardware calls for refresh (which requires
getting there or launching replacements) far more frequently (1 GW is
still 1 GW 5 years from now, but 2020's AI hardware doesn't compete
nearly as much with today's) much more frequency, and latency (1 GW
delivered in 1 second, every second, is a constant 1 GW stream; an
AI's answer from 1 second ago may be too late).