Chinese companies STAR.VISION and Dongfang Xinglian unveiled Space.IDC in Hangzhou on September 25, a computing constellation planned to span more than 1,080 satellites. The spacecraft will be tied together by laser links, and the first one is set to reach orbit in the fourth quarter of 2027, Chinese tech outlet ITHome reports.
The project’s official English name is Space.IDC Computing Constellation, with IDC standing for Internet Data Center. Space String Computing Constellation is a literal translation of its Chinese name. The developers pitch it as China’s first space computing infrastructure built to serve the whole world and deep space. It debuted at the fifth Global Digital Trade Expo.
The partners have split the work. Dongfang Xinglian handles overall design and operations, while STAR.VISION is responsible for the constellation’s artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and for taking it to international markets.
This isn’t new territory for STAR.VISION. The company has been putting AI systems on its Earth observation satellites since at least mid-2023. It has already tested some of the new constellation’s technology on two satellites it built for Uzbekistan and Indonesia. Dongfang Xinglian, for its part, was founded in 2021 in Haiyang, in China’s Shandong province, and specializes in services built on satellite imagery and geodata.
Follow Mediasat on Google News: the latest in TV, telecom and tech
Like similar projects, Space.IDC moves computing into orbit for the power and the cooling. As China in Space explains, sunlight is plentiful up there, and excess heat can simply be radiated into the vacuum.
The constellation will have two tiers. The application tier will include more than 720 satellites that collect data and run already-trained AI models. The computing tier will consist of more than 360 satellites in sun-synchronous orbits, supplying processing power for tasks such as training AI models. That tier can be expanded if needed.
Laser links will connect the two tiers and let the satellites swap data. A satellite that runs short on resources will be able to tap the computing tier, other nodes in the network, and ground systems. Over time, the scattered computing power in orbit is supposed to add up to a service that customers can use.
The constellation will roll out in three stages, each with its own satellite type. The G1 test satellite will deliver 40 to 60 petaflops of computing power, or quadrillions of operations per second, with solar panels generating 11.5 kW. The standard G2 will offer 160 to 310 petaflops on 48 kW of power. The flagship G3 will carry giant 140 kW solar panels and provide 460 to 1,000 petaflops. Lessons from each stage will shape the next.
According to China in Space, STAR.VISION has already booked Orienspace’s Gravity-1 and Galactic Energy’s Ceres-2 rockets to launch G1 satellites, though it hasn’t said how many launches. The main constellation of roughly 1,080 spacecraft is slated for full deployment by 2035.
The funding is already lined up. STAR.VISION has signed strategic credit agreements with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Agricultural Bank of China worth 10 billion yuan, or about $1.49 billion. At least 1 billion yuan (roughly $149 million) of that will go toward the first phase.
Partnership deals are meant to speed up work on computing chips, manufacturing, and other systems. Partners include Baidu AI Cloud, satellite maker MinoSpace, and two Hangzhou research institutes run by the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Xidian University. Hongqing Technology is on the list too. It’s affiliated with LandSpace, the maker of the Zhuque rockets, one of which launched Spacesail satellites in September.
Space.IDC is far from China’s first orbital computing project. The furthest along is Three-Body, run by ADA Space and Zhejiang Lab, which already has about a dozen satellites working in orbit. STAR.VISION is involved in that project as well. In July, another company, Shanghai Xingshu Tiansuan, launched the first satellites of its own computing network. Orbital Chenguang and Chaozhisuan also have demonstration satellites in orbit.
Beijing has made these technologies a priority of its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030). Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is exploring how computing constellations could serve as new infrastructure.
