China eyes space-based AI data centers in new expansion push

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) said it will work to construct “gigawatt-class” space digital-intelligence infrastructure, according to state media reporting on a five-year development plan. The plan describes data centers that would integrate cloud, edge and device-level capabilities to process data in space, combining computing power, storage and transmission bandwidth so some workloads do not need to be sent back to Earth for processing.

CASC also said it aims to achieve operational suborbital space tourism flights and then move toward developing orbital space tourism. The goals broaden China’s commercial space agenda beyond satellite launches and crewed missions, while linking near-term business lines to longer-horizon deep-space ambitions.

Plan arrives as orbital infrastructure becomes a new arena for AI competition, driven by energy constraints and the rapid growth of data-center demand on Earth. A U.S. rival approach has also been publicly outlined, with SpaceX chief Elon Musk recently describing plans to build solar-powered AI data center satellites and arguing that orbital solar generation can offer far higher output than ground-based panels.

China’s ambitions face a key engineering constraint: the country has yet to complete a reusable rocket test, while SpaceX’s operational reusability has lowered launch costs and helped its Starlink subsidiary dominate low Earth orbit satellite deployment. Reusability is widely seen as central to scaling launch cadence and reducing the cost per kilogram of payload to orbit, which becomes more important as projects shift from individual spacecraft to constellations and large infrastructure.

Beijing logged a record 93 space launches last year, supported by a maturing domestic commercial space sector, according to official announcements cited in the report. Separately, China this week inaugurated its first School of Interstellar Navigation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, aimed at developing talent in frontier fields including interstellar propulsion and deep-space navigation, as Beijing signals a longer-term transition from near-Earth operations to deep-space exploration.