Google's Orbital AI Bet Is a Gift for These Space Stocks

On October 1, Google put an AI data center in orbit.

It’s a small one: a refrigerator-sized satellite carrying four of Google’s custom AI chips. But it’s up there, it’s working, and it’s running a version of Google’s Gemma model off nothing but sunlight.

That launch tells you exactly where the space economy is headed. And where the biggest profits will be.

The Data Center Race Just Left the Planet

Google calls it Project Suncatcher.

The logic is simple. AI is devouring electricity. Local opposition to power-hungry data centers is growing all over the country. And Google alone expects to spend $180 billion–$190 billion on capital projects this year to keep up with demand.

In orbit, the sun never stops shining and nobody shows up to a zoning meeting.

“The sun puts out almost all of the power in our solar system,” says Travis Beals, who leads the project.

Google already has two more satellites planned for next year to test laser links between them. Its end goal is entire clusters of satellites, each packed with dozens of AI chips.

And Google isn’t alone.

Blue Origin has proposed a network of 51,600 satellites for the job. Startup Starcloud flew an Nvidia H100 chip into orbit last November. SpaceX has filed with the FCC for up to 1 million data center satellites.

One million.

Even if only a fraction of that gets built, it’s the largest hardware order in the history of spaceflight.

Somebody Has to Build All of It

Every one of those satellites needs a spacecraft bus, solar arrays, a ride to orbit, a way to deploy, and a ground network to control it once it gets there.

That’s where the money is.

And it’s stacked on top of the space economy we already have. The Pentagon is spending about $71 billion a year in orbit. Golden Dome is adding a constellation of missile-tracking satellites and interceptors. Commercial broadband constellations replace their hardware every three to five years.

The global space economy is worth roughly $470 billion today, and some analysts see $1.8 trillion by the early 2030s. Orbital AI could make that number look conservative.

This is a generational build-out, and it’s just getting started.

Why I’m Not Buying SpaceX to Play It

The obvious move is to buy SpaceX.

I think that’s a mistake.

SpaceX is already valued at roughly $2 trillion. Much of that assumes it will win the orbital AI race. To get there, it’s lining up $40 billion in new debt to buy Nvidia chips. So it’s the company footing the bill for this future, and it’s competing against Google and Blue Origin to collect on it.

I’d rather own the companies that get paid no matter who wins.

They sell the hardware and services every player in this race will need, and much of their revenue is already locked in through Pentagon contracts while orbital AI ramps up. And they’re priced at a sliver of SpaceX’s valuation, so it takes a lot less to double your money.

I’ve found three of them.

Three Ways to Get Paid on Every Launch

The first builds rockets, builds satellites, and is one of the few American makers of space-grade solar cells. That covers three things every orbital data center needs. Its backlog just hit a record of more than $2.3 billion. And its new reusable rocket, built to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9, is slated to fly before year-end.

The second just won a $22.4 million Pentagon contract, announced October 7, to build next-generation dispensers that deploy small satellites once a rocket reaches orbit. It’s also building pieces of the Golden Dome and the commercial space station that will replace the ISS. That station’s payload space is already fully booked.

The third runs the ground. It won a $446.8 million Space Force contract to build the network that controls America’s missile-tracking satellites. Its software lets operators run satellite ground stations on demand instead of building new hardware for every mission. And on October 5, it landed more than $100 million in new space and cyber contracts.

If a million satellites go up, all of them need to talk to the ground.

I’ve put the names, tickers, and buy-up-to prices for all three in my new briefing.

Google just showed us where the space economy is going.

These three companies are building the road to get there.