TAMPA, Fla. — A Los Angeles-based startup has raised $5 million to fund an in-orbit computing demonstration next year, ahead of plans to deploy more than 100,000 orbital data centers to meet surging demand for AI infrastructure.
Orbital, founded earlier this year by electric scooter entrepreneur Euwyn Poon, said June 9 that the pre-seed funds will also support initial work on its first purpose-built orbital compute satellite, Orbital-1, slated for 2028.
According to Poon, who sold his e-scooter company Spin to Ford a year after it was founded in 2017, each production satellite would be capable of 100 kilowatts (kW) of compute power for AI workloads.
“For perspective, the highest-power commercial satellites flown to date generate only 20-30 kW,” Poon said, “and the only spacecraft ever in the 100 kW class is the ISS, a crewed station assembled over decades.
“We’re targeting that in a single, mass-manufacturable satellite.”
