China has taken a major step forward in space technology by launching the first 12 satellites of a planned network of 2,800 satellites designed to act as an orbital supercomputer. According to Space News, these satellites were developed by ADA Space, in partnership with Zhijiang Laboratory and Neijang High-Tech Zone.
Unlike traditional satellites that send data back to Earth for processing, these new satellites can handle their own data onboard. This reduces the need for ground stations and speeds up data analysis.
These 12 satellites are part of ADA Space’s “Star Compute” project and make up the beginning of what the company calls the “Three-Body Computing Constellation.” Each satellite runs an advanced AI model with eight billion parameters and can perform 744 trillion operations per second (744 TOPS). Together, they deliver a combined processing power of five peta operations per second (5 POPS). For comparison, a Microsoft Copilot PC uses only around 40 TOPS. China’s long-term goal is to expand the network to reach 1,000 POPS.
The satellites are linked by lasers and can communicate with each other at speeds of up to 100 gigabits per second. They also share a total of 30 terabytes of onboard storage. Besides AI processing, they carry scientific tools, such as an X-ray polarization detector that can detect short cosmic events like gamma-ray bursts. They can also produce 3D digital twin data for uses in emergency response, gaming, and virtual tourism.
According to the South China Morning Post, these satellites do more than just speed up communication. Traditional satellites are often limited by low bandwidth and few ground stations, meaning only about 10% of the data they collect ever makes it back to Earth. Processing data in space solves this problem.
Jonathan McDowell, a space expert from Harvard, explained that space-based data centers can run on solar energy and release excess heat into space, lowering energy use and reducing environmental impact. He also suggested that the U.S. and Europe could follow with similar systems in the future.
