Can Southeast Asia extend its AI data centre advantage into Space?

(Karryl Kim Sagun Trajano, Iuna Tsyrulneva – Lowy The Interpreter) Space-based data centres are seen as the next frontier. Technology titans from the United States and China are already moving to pioneer orbital platforms or satellite constellations that provide compute and storage for AI and other data-intensive workloads. The aim is to leverage the unique conditions of low Earth orbit to overcome terrestrial constraints. By drawing on continuous solar energy and the cold vacuum of space for passive radiative cooling, such systems reduce dependence on Earth-based power grids and lower energy and water requirements. They can support climate modelling, scientific simulations, and large-scale analytics. The US has been moving swiftly in this direction. Initiatives like Google’s Project Suncatcher indicate the space-compute frontier is rapidly moving from concept to reality. Meanwhile, Lonestar Data has demonstrated off-planet storage and data exchange on lunar missions and plans cislunar storage satellites. Elon Musk’s SpaceX recently acquired xAI, motivated by doing AI computations in space, including building space-based data centres. Yet Southeast Asia remains absent from this first wave of orbital computing initiatives. If the region is to participate meaningfully in this domain in the future, it must act now. – Can Southeast Asia extend its AI data centre advantage into Space? | Lowy Institute