After flaunting their underwater data centres last month, Microsoft is now taking the space route. Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it is teaming up with satellite operator, SpaceX to provide uninterrupted Azure services to its customers no matter where they are.

The Azure team has come up with the Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC) for customers who need cloud computing capabilities in hybrid or challenging environments. The MDC solves this by bringing Azure to these environments, providing datacenter scale compute resources closest to where they’re needed.

These modular data centres will be powered by Azure Space offerings and partnerships that can extend satellite connectivity anywhere in the world. The applications range from mobile command centres, humanitarian assistance, military mission needs, mineral exploration, and other use cases requiring high intensity, secure computing on Azure.

“You don’t need fibre; you basically talk to the satellites that we have in orbit, the satellites will talk to each other and get that data to the other point on Earth where it’s needed,” Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and chief of operating officer, said in an interview with Tom Keane, VP of Microsoft Azure Global.

Along with MDC, Microsoft has also announced the Azure “orbital emulator” — a digital environment for satellite developers to simulate constellation designs and test artificial intelligence algorithms. The technology was developed for the US government agencies and is now being offered commercially.

#opinions #aws ground station #azure space #modular data centers #spaxex #starlink