Mistral, Loft Orbital plan $1 billion deal for compute in orbit

Loft Orbital, Marlan Space, and Mistral AI signed a $1 billion deal to deploy AI compute on satellites, planning a constellation of 50 satellites to run AI workloads in space rather than terrestrial data centers.

Why it matters: Space-based compute has been floated as a way around the power and cooling constraints straining the terrestrial grid; a concrete billion-dollar commitment from a frontier lab suggests some in the industry now see orbital data centers as more than a thought experiment. It's also notable as a major European AI player betting on an unconventional infrastructure strategy.