AI plus IP: Sophia Space and Caltech secure a patent for orbital data centers that use passive cooling

Researchers at Caltech and Sophia Space, a start-up, have developed a technology using solar power to prevent computer equipment from overheating in orbit. An artist’s conception shows a data center satellite that makes use of Sophia Space’s tile-based architecture. (Sophia Space Illustration) Sophia Space has secured a patent for a technology that could pave the way for solar-powered orbital data centers that passively radiate excess heat into space.

Developed in partnership with Caltech, Sophia’s architecture tackles a major hurdle in orbital computing: how to cool thousands of chips running artificial intelligence applications in space. Traditional designs rely on satellite-wide radiator systems with heat pumps and circulating fluids. In contrast, Sophia plans to build flat, 4-inch-square modular tiles equipped with four processors each.

The tiles draw power from solar cells on their sunlit side, and shed heat into the cold vacuum of space from their dark side. This approach avoids having to put a cooling system in the central bus of every satellite, said Leon Alkalai, Sophia Space’s co-founder, chairman and chief technology officer. “I think you will find in time that our approach is much more favorable when we scale to larger wattage systems, because bringing everything into a bus can only be done until a certain level, and then it becomes almost impossible to do,” he told GeekWire.

“Our benefit is really scalability.” An added benefit of the satellite design is that each tile is powered independently. “The connectivity between the tiles is with fiber optic connectors,” Alkalai said. No power, no thermal, no copper wires.

It’s just fiber optic links.” Alkalai and his team came up with a fitting acronym for the design of the modules: TILE, which stands for Thermal Integrated LEO Edge. (LEO stands for “low Earth orbit.”) Sophia Space’s founder, Leon Alkalai, speaks during a Seattle Tech Week fireside chat. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) How it all began Alkalai founded Sophia Space after he finished up a 32-year career at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and transitioned to the space startup world in 2021.

The company is headquartered in Pasadena, Calif., but also has corporate connections to Seattle. This week, Alkalai was one of the featured speakers for Seattle Tech Week. The TILE approach to orbital electronics came out of a Caltech research project that initially focused on space solar power systems.