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The race to power artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming the defining constraint of the next phase of the digital economy, and Meta Platforms (META) is signaling just how far the industry may need to go. In a recent move that underscores the scale, Meta has partnered with private startup Overview Energy to secure up to 1 gigawatt of space-based solar power, an emerging technology that collects energy in orbit and beams it back to Earth for continuous, 24/7 use.
This is a direct response to the explosive growth in energy demand driven by AI data centers, where power availability is increasingly becoming a bottleneck to scaling compute infrastructure. By tapping solar energy beyond the constraints of terrestrial grids, where intermittency, land use, and permitting challenges persist, Meta is effectively placing a long-duration bet on orbital energy as a baseload solution for AI workloads.
