Google runs Gemma 4 on a TPU in orbit for the first time

Felix Laurent 30 Oct 2026 3 min read

Big tech

Google says its Project Suncatcher prototype satellite has returned the first AI response from a data center class TPU in orbit. The first prompt asked Gemma 4, running on board, for a haiku about being in space. TechCrunch framed it as Gemma 4 writing cheesy poetry in space.

What Google announced

In a post dated Oct 30, Travis Beals, who leads Project Suncatcher, calls it a "Hello World" milestone. The team uplinked the prompt during a pass over a ground station, and the answer came back as the satellite passed over Svalbard, Norway. The model wrote: "Blue marble below / Data streams in silent grace / Starlight feeds my core."

Google says the team has since sent other prompts, including limericks and prompts that report the technical status of the payload. "Our chips have officially earned their space wings," the post says. It gives no figures on speed or power, so the details come from the press.

The satellite and its chips

Google launched the prototype on Oct 1 on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission, and built it with satellite operator Planet. TechCrunch says the satellite flew with more than 100 other spacecraft on a Falcon 9 and took about three weeks to commission.

The satellite carries four TPUs, but TechCrunch, which corrected an earlier version of its story, says it can run only one at a time. It generates up to 1 kW of electricity. NPR adds a correction of its own: the prototype is in a standard orbit and runs on batteries, not in the sun-synchronous orbit planned for later satellites. Neither Google post names the TPU generation. The reports also disagree on how long a chip can run.

Where the reports differ

NPR said at launch that the chips would run Gemma for 15 minutes at a time because of heat management. TechCrunch says power limits let the TPU turn on for about 20 minutes at a time. Google's posts give neither number.

Both limits point to the same problem. A satellite has to power its chips from the sun and get rid of their heat by radiating it into space. That is what the whole project is meant to test.

The plan behind Suncatcher

Google announced Project Suncatcher in November 2025 as a research effort into AI data centers in space. Its design paper describes clusters of 81 satellites flying about 1 km apart at around 650 km, in a dawn to dusk sun-synchronous orbit where the panels get near constant sunlight. Google tested its Trillium TPU in a proton beam. The memory showed first irregularities after about 2.7 times the dose expected over five years in orbit with shielding. Google also estimated that launch prices may fall below $200 per kg by the mid-2030s.

That plan called for two prototype satellites with Planet by early 2027. One flew in October 2026 instead. Google now says two interconnected satellites will follow in 2027, with more power and optical links between them. The next tests on the current satellite cover how the TPUs handle heat stress and radiation. Google is not alone in this race.

Who else runs AI in orbit

Starcloud launched a satellite with an Nvidia H100 chip in November 2025 and ran a Google model on it, NPR reports. TechCrunch says Starcloud and Cowboy Space plan to run inference on individual satellites. According to NPR, which cites an SEC filing, SpaceX expects to start orbital AI compute satellites as early as 2028.

Compared with those plans, Google's result is modest, and its own lead says so. Beals told NPR the satellite is "a very minimal test", meant to operate for a year.

What the test shows

On cost, Beals told NPR he does not expect computing in orbit to be cheaper than on the ground within five years, and that it will probably take longer.

So did Google prove that AI data centers can work in space? Not yet. It proved that a data center class TPU can run an open model in orbit and send back an answer. One chip at a time, for 15 or 20 minutes, on batteries, is far from the 81-satellite clusters in Google's design. Google has published no speed, latency or cost figures. The real tests are still ahead: heat, radiation and the twin satellites linked by laser in 2027.