China announced plans to build an artificial intelligence data center in orbit in the next five years. This is a move that directly challenges Elon Musk and SpaceX's ambitions in the development of space-based computing infrastructure.
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), China's main space contractor, revealed the plan in a five-year development document reported by state television station CCTV. CASC said it would build a "gigawatt-class" orbital AI computing facility powered by solar energy and targeted to be fully operational by 2030.
This facility is designed to integrate cloud, edge, and terminal (device) capabilities, as well as achieve deep integration between computing power, storage capacity, and transmission bandwidth. With this concept, data from Earth can be processed directly in space without having to be sent back to a ground data center.
The CASC policy document released in December 2025 revealed a broader ambition, namely building an industrial-scale "Space Cloud" that operates by 2030. The combination of space-based solar power and AI computing is set as a key pillar in China's 15th Five-Year Plan, which is the blueprint for national economic development.
On the other hand, Elon Musk presented a similar vision at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week. He stated that a solar-powered AI data center in outer space is the most logical solution for the huge energy needs of AI.
"Building a solar-powered data center in space is not up for debate. The cheapest place to put AI will be in space, and it will happen in two years, at the latest three years," Musk said.
Musk emphasized that solar panels in orbit are capable of generating up to five times more energy than solar panels on Earth's surface. SpaceX plans to fund part of this orbital computing project through an initial public offering (IPO) plan worth around 25 billion US dollars in the near future.
The space race between China and the United States now extends far beyond AI data centers. CASC also expressed its commitment to realizing manned suborbital space tourism flights and gradually developing orbital space tourism in the next five years. Its long-term goal is to make China a "world-leading space power" by 2045.
However, China still faces major technical challenges. The country has not managed to complete a fully reusable rocket test. Instead, SpaceX has relied on its reusable Falcon 9 rocket, which significantly reduces launch costs and allows Starlink to dominate in the deployment of low-orbit satellites as well as supporting space tourism operations.
China, however, recorded a record 93 space launches last year, largely driven by the growth of the domestic commercial spaceflight sector.
Beijing's long-term ambitions are further visible with the inauguration of China's first Interplanetary Navigation School under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This institution aims to develop talent in frontier fields such as interstellar propulsion and deep space navigation.
"The next 10 to 20 years will be a window of opportunity for China's leap in interstellar navigation. Original innovation in basic research and technological breakthroughs will reshape the pattern of space exploration," Xinhua News Agency wrote.
Meanwhile, the United States and China remain in a tight race to return astronauts to the Moon, which was last visited by humans on the Apollo mission in 1972.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
