Post by Valentin Hoffmann

Grateful to the NewSpace Initiative and the BDI - Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie e.V. for the opportunity to present the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) work on space-based data centres. 🛰️ Pushed by real terrestrial constraints, we see the industrial ecosystem converging and pouring capital into what they see as a long-term alternative - a quick look at SpaceX's recent IPO will confirm this (see below for ESPI's comment on that). Now, a honest outlook would admit that yes, the business case hinges heavily on launch costs, and yes, heat rejection, servicing, and radiation remain hurdles. But away from the perspective of bringing the entire data centre industry "off Earth", real use-cases exist: remote sensing pre-processing, space-Earth data fusion, defence-driven edge computing, or secure and sovereign storage. Most importantly, this is another moment Europe can't afford to miss. Cloud and compute, just like space assets, are strategic infrastructure - and our hyper reliance on U.S. solutions leave us vulnerable. A European 'cloud-edge-space continuum', hooking onto existing initiatives across the ecosystem, would make for a sovereign and resilient flagship alternative. For a deeper dive on these questions: 👉 Our full report on space-based data centers - https://lnkd.in/d-DH-ZgE 👉 Our comment on SpaceX's IPO and building the digital stack https://lnkd.in/d8XuKPWQ