Google's Project Suncatcher runs first AI model in orbit

Google has successfully run an AI model on an orbiting satellite and received its first complete response back on Earth, a key milestone for its Project Suncatcher initiative exploring space-based AI computing infrastructure. CEO Sundar Pichai announced the achievement on X, calling it a “‘hello world’ milestone.” He said the team sent a command to the satellite, booted its Tensor Processing Unit, ran a prompt, and received a haiku as the response. The prototype satellite launched on October 1 and completed initial commissioning checks, including powering up its host and TPU trays and running early machine learning tests, according to a Google blog post.