Meta secures up to 1 GW of orbital solar for AI data centers

Meta has reached an agreement with Virginia-based Overview Energy for preferential access to up to 1 gigawatt of electricity from a planned space-based solar system, the company announced Monday.

Overview Energy plans to collect sunlight in geosynchronous orbit and transmit energy down to terrestrial receivers. The startup demonstrated a core element of that system last year by sending power from a moving aircraft to a ground receiver, a test the company says validates its transmission technology.

Meta said the beamed electricity would supply ground-based data centers on Earth rather than power hardware in orbit. The company tied access to capacity to specific technology milestones and said capacity would come online only after those milestones are met.

In the same announcement, Meta disclosed a contract with Noon Energy for long-duration energy storage to smooth supply for data-center operations. The partners plan a 25-megawatt, 2.5-gigawatt-hour pilot in 2028 and aim to scale toward a combined target of 1 GW of capacity and 100 GWh of storage. Meta noted the storage would provide more than 100 hours of energy when fully scaled.

Meta described the arrangements as investments to meet growing electricity needs from artificial intelligence workloads. A Meta spokesperson said, “Space-based solar is early-stage but promising; it can deliver continuous, carbon-free power and direct it where it’s needed in real time.” The spokesperson added that the company is providing project certainty by securing preferential access to future capacity tied to milestones.

The announcement comes as Meta reallocates spending toward AI infrastructure. An internal memo from the company’s chief people officer outlined plans to cut about 8,000 jobs and eliminate roughly 6,000 open roles, a shift the company said aims to fund AI development.

Meta has previously invested in a range of clean-energy projects across the United States, and the company said it has backed more than 30 gigawatts of new energy capacity across 28 states, including wind, solar, nuclear and geothermal projects.

Experts caution that commercial-scale space-based solar faces hurdles, including launch costs, satellite maintenance, regulatory approvals and overall economics. Regulatory filings from another aerospace company have also warned that orbital computing and related services may struggle to reach commercial viability, underscoring technical and business uncertainties for space-to-Earth power systems.