NEW YORK, Dec 2: Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on Sunday that the tech giant plans to begin building solar-powered data centers in space as early as 2027, marking a bold step in reducing the environmental impact of artificial intelligence (AI).

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Pichai said the initiative, known internally as Project Suncatcher, will initially involve sending “tiny racks of machines” into satellites to test operations, with plans to scale the project over the following decade.

“At Google, we’re always proud of taking moonshots,” Pichai said. “One of our moonshots is: how do we one day have data centers in space so that we can better harness the energy from the sun, which is one hundred trillion times more energy than we produce on Earth today.”

The project comes amid growing global scrutiny over the environmental footprint of AI, particularly the energy-intensive operations of terrestrial data centers. The United Nations Environment Program has warned that AI’s environmental toll includes the extraction of rare materials and minerals, water consumption for cooling, electronic waste, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Sally Radwan, Chief Digital Officer at UNEP, emphasized the need for careful environmental assessment. “We need to make sure the net effect of AI on the planet is positive before we deploy the technology at scale,” she said in a November press release.

Pichai added that Google hopes to have its custom AI chips, known as TPUs, operating in space by 2027. The company has not provided further details on the timeline or scale of Project Suncatcher.

The initiative reflects Google’s long-term vision of extraterrestrial data centers as a way to harness solar energy more efficiently and mitigate the environmental impact of AI technologies on Earth.