Despite recent proposals for orbital data centers, the CEO of AWS expresses reservations.
Following Starlink’s ambitious scheme for one million space-based data centers, Starcloud is preparing its upcoming mission to deploy AWS hardware into orbit.
In a LinkedIn announcement, Starcloud CEO Philip Johnston stated, “Starcloud will be the first to launch the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Outpost hardware to space on our second satellite launching in October.” AWS Outpost functions as the company’s private cloud solution for on-premises deployment.
In October 2025, Starcloud successfully deployed an Nvidia H100 GPU into space aboard its initial satellite, Starcloud-1. A year prior, Chinese firm Guoxing Aerospace had already established an orbital computing network, with Starlink and Google subsequently revealing similar intentions.
Matt Garman, CEO of AWS, expressed doubt regarding the feasibility of orbital data centers. Addressing participants at the Cisco AI summit, Garman remarked, “We lack the rocket capacity to launch a million satellites currently, so we’re quite distant from that goal. The expense of transporting a payload into space today is colossal,” as reported by Reuters.
Garman stands among numerous skeptics who question the practicality of establishing data centers in space as a feasible option. Various concerns have been raised, including the risk of impacts with space debris, the challenge of providing water for cooling, the inability to repair hardware malfunctions, and latency issues.
Originally, this piece was published by Network World.
